Paget’s youth team got their season underway on Monday evening with a trip to Malvern in the first preliminary round of the FA Youth Cup.
The game started with 2 unfortunate injuries with centre back Ollie Clifford going off for Paget and a Malvern player clutching his shoulder, we wish both a speedy recovery.
For the first 20 minutes it was fairly even, a lot of possession played in both midfield’s but nothing of any real quality. After 20 minutes Paget took control and started to assert their dominance earning a number of corners and eventually were rewarded after Ethan Richardson’s corner was cleared back to him, he beat his man and whipped in a cross which NiallClarke converted after a bit of a scramble. 1-0.
After the goal it was all Paget, moving the ball at pace and stretching Malvern’s defence, and they were again rewarded when Callum Williams made a fantastic run down the right and eventually cut the ball back to the edge of the box for Niall Clarke to sweep home and make it 2-0. Paget continuedto dominate right up until half time with the Malvern keeper making 3 excellent saves to deny Ethan Richardson, MaxTurner and Myles Lowe from grabbing a third goal.
Half Time: Malvern 0 Paget 2
The second half got underway in similar fashion to the first, this time it was Mackenzie Humphries who went off injured but having made our subs we were down to 10 men for the rest of the half. Malvern had a good 15-20 minute spell after this, threatening a couple of times and forcing Nabs Subedarinto two good saves in goal to keep us ahead at 2-0. After that Paget kept the ball and managed the game superbly, OllieGethin and Kieran McElwaine in midfield did a fantastic job pressing and stifling Malvern to prevent them from creating anything else despite their man advantage. A few good efforts from Louie Newbold and Kieran were thrown in for good measure with the possession Paget had when seeing out the game before Myles Lowe in the 92nd minute produced some magic running the length of the pitch to almost score an incredible goal but he fired his shot just over the bar unfortunately. It would have undoubtedly been a goal of the season contender had he found the net.
An excellent all round display from Paget seeing them progress to the next round.
Full Time: Malvern 0 Paget 2