It has been a very busy week for the Arsenal academy so far, with the U21s and the U18s both in action.
On Monday night Jack Wilshere’s U18 side made the trip to Vicarage Road to take on Watford in the fifth round of the FA Youth Cup.
It was a concerning start from Arsenal as they found themselves 2-0 down after 13 minutes.
However, the young Gunners produced a spirited second half display and ended up winning 4-2 in a memorable encounter..
Amario Cozier-Duberry, who has been on the bench for the first-team recently, scored two penalties, with Osman Kamara and Michal Rosiak also getting on the scoresheet.
Arsenal will host Cambridge United or Sheffield Wednesday at home in the quarter-finals.
The U21s were in action at home to PSV last night in the Premier League International Cup.
Mehmet Ali’s side got off to an even worse start than the U18s as they were 3-0 down with nine minutes gone.
PSV completely dominated the early stages, but Arsenal showed good spirit to reduce the deficit as Joel Ideho scored and Matt Smith then converted a penalty to make it 3-2.
Any hopes of a comeback were quashed, however, with PSV winning 7-2 as Arsenal were knocked out of the competition.
It does need to be taken into consideration, though, that the U21s were without several of their key players who started for the U18s the previous day.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
PSV or Monaco?
Maybe we took them both on at the same time. Would also explain why we lost 7-2. Tall task to ask them to play against 22 players. Amazed we actually scored 2 goals under the circumstances.
The U18s though! Wonderful comeback! Wonder if we’ll see Wilshere as head coach in the future.
Who knows, mate. I’m on for it but Jack has to brutally prove his worth first for that role in the future
Playing against 2 teams is tough, and even more so when the coach is MIA…
I mean that’s clearly why they lost. 11 vs 22 is tough, even for our boys!
Missed opportunity on wordplay there with M. Ali’s team getting Knocked-Out.
So Dubery,Saka and Jorginho to take our penalties then.