Southampton U18 3-2 Fulham U18

Fulham Under-18s fell out of the FA Youth Cup on Tuesday after losing 3-2 to Southampton at St Mary's Stadium.

A disastrous start saw us go three goals down in the opening 13 minutes, but we came out swinging after the break. Terrell Works and Tom Olyott grabbed goals back to make it an exciting end.

Like in the previous rounds of this competition, Under-21 centre-back duo Charlie Robinson and Harvey Araujo came in to further solidify the back line.

With Ollie Gofford limping off in the Premier League Cup last weekend, skilful youngster Josh King came in to sit alongside captain Delano McCoy-Splatt in midfield.

The young Whites made a really positive start on the south coast. Aaron Loupalo-Bi pounced on a sloppy back-pass before taking the ball around goalkeeper Adli Mohamed, but unfortunately his attempted pass back across goal was cleared.

Moments later, Lemar Gordon laid the ball off nicely to King, but his effort was easy to deal with for Mohamed.

Despite that strong beginning, we went behind on six minutes. Kamari Doyle slotted the ball through to in-form forward Dominic Ballard, who in turn calmly finished past Michael Allen.

Things went from bad to worse just a couple of minutes later. Allen miscontrolled the ball, which led to a simple pass to Doyle who did the rest. 

We were slightly rattled by the tricky start and conceded a third on 13 minutes. Robinson passed the ball straight to Doyle, before tripping him in the area as he looked to cut onto his left. Ballard scored from the spot to grab his second of the game.

We had a big opportunity to grab one back on 18 minutes after some neat build-up play. McCoy-Splatt rolled Callum Osmand through on goal, but the Welshman’s venomous hit was tipped over by Mohamed.

Another decent opportunity came our way just past the half-hour mark. Some tidy play led to Loupalo-Bi sprinting through on goal, but our number nine was stopped in his tracks, courtesy of some decent defending.

We left ourselves with plenty of work to do, going in at the break 3-0 down.

Fulham’s Allen was the first to be called into action after the break, diving to his right to keep out a decent Ballard strike from range.

The game was being played predominantly in the Saints half as Ali Melloul’s lads looked for a goal back. Loupalo-Bi found substitute Tom Olyott, who cut onto his weaker foot nicely before blazing just over.

Then, up the other end, Ballard’s attempted chip over Allen flew just wide of the far post.

McCoy-Splatt forced a wonderful save out of Mohamed as we entered the last 20 minutes. Our captain’s attempt was heading straight for the top right corner.

We deservedly got a goal back on 81 minutes, courtesy of Works. The winger recieved the ball in the area before coolly slotting home to give us hope.

The game was then brought to life, when Olyott curled a drive in from a tight angle to make it 3-2. The substitute made a huge impact for us after coming on.

Our lads showed incredible fight in the second half, but ran out of time looking for the all-importamt third goal.