Sunderland 2-2 U21s

Monday 28 January 2013 14:51

Fulham Under-21s drew 2-2 with Sunderland at the Academy of Light on Monday afternoon in the Barclays U21 Premier League Group 1.

After falling behind, the Whites recovered to equalise and then take the lead, although a late effort by the home side meant that Kit Symons and his boys had to settle for a point.

“We should have won the game,” Kit told fulhamfc.com after the match. “We kept the ball quite well and had some good opportunities that we should have taken, so that was disappointing.

“We went 1-0 down from a corner which we poorly defended so that was disappointing from our point of view. Then we got it back to 1-1 through Lauri [Dalla Valle]. It was a good run from Ryan [Williams] who went round the keeper and got brought down and Lauri scored the penalty.

“So it was 1-1 at half-time and then in the second half we went 2-1 up through a bit of a freaky goal really; it might have been an own goal or it might go down as a Tom Donegan goal. Lauri closed down a backpass, Tom got the ball and broke wide and he sort of dinked it in and the boy headed it on the line. I don’t exactly know how it went in to be honest but if it goes down as a goal for Tom then I’ll be quite happy.

“We had some good opportunities and then conceded with about five or six minutes to go. The wind got really heavy second half and sort of penned us in and we couldn’t really get out.”

Kit named 17-year-old centre back Cameron Burgess in his starting line-up for the first time and was pleased with how the Scottish-born youngster fared on his Under-21s debut.

“He did really well actually, he was very good,” Kit said. “That was his first run out for us and he did very well. He’s 17 and a first year scholar. It was an opportunity for Cameron and he stepped up and did well so we’re very pleased with him.”

Fulham: 1. Somogyi, 2. Brister, 3. Kavanagh, 4. Vigen Christensen, 5. Grimmer, 6. Burgess, 7. Williams, 8. Smith, 9. Dalla Valle, 10. Donegan, 11. Altman

Subs: 12. Oberschmidt, 13. Minkwitz, 14. David, 15. Islamovic, 16. Gameiro