Myles Lewis-Skelly’s header in stoppage time of extra time capped a dramatic night at Emirates Stadium as Arsenal’s under-18s beat 10-man Manchester City 2-1 to secure their place in the FA Youth Cup Final.
The winner sparked joyous scenes in front of a crowd of 10,000 with staff and substitutes racing across the pitch to join a mass bundle in front of the East Stand.
🤩 The magical match-winning moment under the lights #AFCU18 | #FAYouthCup pic.twitter.com/9aSIxXKUCp
— Arsenal Academy (@ArsenalAcademy) April 4, 2023
After the match, head coach Jack Wilshere, who has overseen a number of late wins in the tournament this season, praised his players’ togetherness.
“The players have a special type of unity and it’s our biggest strength, we keep pushing, we keep going to the end,” the former England international told Arsenal.com.
“I remind the players to show that when they are on the pitch and they do. The unity has created special moments tonight, a moment they won’t forget.
“The moment when we scored the winner was special and it’s going to live in the memory of the players, staff, and everyone involved with the club.”
The young Gunners will face either West Ham United or Southampton in the one-leg final at Emirates Stadium and Wilshere is already excited.
“We’ll prepare in the same manner as always, we’ll go back over this game and review this and look to see where we can improve because the final will be a tough game,” he said.
“However, we know it’ll be a special occasion as it’s at the Emirates and we will use that alongside the incredible support from the crowd to motivate us in the final.”
The final is currently scheduled for 29th April but that clashes with the senior side’s showdown with Chelsea, so we assume another date will have to be found.
In other news, a date for Arsenal Women’s UCL Champions League semi-final second leg with Wolfsburg has now been confirmed. The match will be played at Emirates Stadium on Monday 1st May (a bank holiday) at 5.45pm. Tickets details can be found here.
Great to see the same togetherness and positivity that the first team has, it has got to help them have a better chance of succeeding. Helped to be playing 10 men, but excellent to get into the final. I wonder how strong West Ham and Southampton are…
Beating Man city on the way to the title will be a thing this season
First the women beat City, then the under-18’s. Just one more win over them to go.
Sorry Mikel and co., the precedent has been set, you’ve no other choice but to beat them now.
Congrats to the boys!
Btw I watched Ch*lsea-Pool last night, and it confirmed to me how average they both are right now. 1st half Pool were awful, bit better in the 2nd half.
They’ll need to improve a lot this weekend not to get battered by us!
I’m just annoyed that Klopp decided to rest most of his first team players. Liverpool could have easily won if they played Salah, Coady, Robertson and Trent. Now we have to face those fresh legs in weekends.
They’re also much stronger at home. Only lost one at Anfield compared to only winning three on the road all season..
Still quietly confident though. Their defense has been pretty porous and with Jesus back let’s see what we can do.
And Well done U18 lads! Didnt mean to hijack thread for 1st team chat 😉
I don’t think he did it because Arsenal are the next opponent. I think he did it because he thought that was the best way to help Liverpool, which is kinda his job. First, three difficult matches in a row, it makes sense to rest players for the middle match (isn’t that what Arteta would do?). Second, the way Alexander-Arnold and Robertson (and, to a degree, Salah) played against Man City, it was also sending them a message that they were not irreplaceable. I hope the message did not work. I assume Alexander-Arnold, if he plays, will pay more attention… Read more »
This
Awesome. Taking their example from the senior team. FA to investigate Arsenal over enthusiastically celebrating by coming on to the pitch next week.
That’s just fucking outstanding.
Really outstanding.