With one eye on their crunch encounter with Portsmouth in the FA Youth Cup, a slightly re-jigged Fulham side took on West Ham for the second time this season. The first match Fulham won 1-0 with an excellent performance on the opening day of the season.
With a number of players playing for the Development Squad three days previously, Gary Brazil looked to give some of his regulars a rest and show the depth of his squad. The changes didn’t seem to make too much of difference early on as Fulham enjoyed good amounts of possession. As the game progressed however, West Ham started to have prolonged periods of pressure in the Fulham half.
Fulham became a bit disjointed as passes went astray and lacked the creativity to trouble the opposition players. As a result West Ham started to assert an attacking authority which central defenders Troy Brown and Matthew Briggs were really stretched to deal with.
Despite this uncertain period for the Whites, they took the lead through their Italian youngster Karim Laribi. Playing at left back, Karim picked the ball up on the halfway line and drove forward into the West Ham half. He cut inside their right midfielder and drove on again. A nice switch of feet took him between the right back and the right sided central defender and through on goal. He unleashed a shot at goal and the recovering centre back deflected his shot over the keeper to give the Whites a surprise lead, but a fine individual goal for the youngster.
From that point on Fulham’s goal led a charmed life as West Ham piled on the pressure and created a fair number of chances. In the end their pressure told as with almost the last kick of the game they scored the equalising goal that they had threatened to produce for much of the second half.
Speaking after the game Under 18 Manager, Gary Brazil, reflected on a disjointed performance from his side but a good point earned nonetheless: “I think Tony Carr [West Ham manager] went away from that game thinking that the point they got was the least they deserved,” explained Brazil. “We know that we can play a lot better as a team but sometimes games like this happen and I think we had one eye perhaps on the game against Portsmouth the following week, which, to an extent, you can understand as the FA Youth Cup is such a huge competition for these lads.”
Fulham: Etheridge; Cameron, Hall, Brown, Laribi; Wilson, Moscatiello, Jackson, Noble; Bichard, Uwezu