Тоттенхэм Хотспур Tottenham Hotspur | Форум Русских Шпор

Lads in seven heaven!

Our Under-19s marked their first home fixture in the NextGen Series with an emphatic 7-1 victory against Internazionale at Leyton Orient’s Matchroom Stadium this afternoon.

Having drawn their first fixture 2-2 away in Basel, Tim Sherwood’s side took little time to make their mark on home soil.

Kevin Stewart seized on an opportunity to push forward from the back in the eighth minute and slotted a pass through the Inter defence for Alex Pritchard to open the scoring with a smart finish.

The lads were 2-0 up five minutes later as Souleymane Coulibaly outpaced the Inter defence before firing home with a crisp left-footed strike.

Inter barely had time to re-start the game before they found themselves three goals down as neat work from the impressive Pritchard in midfield led to Tomislav Gomelt finding himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and he comfortably stroked the ball into the roof of the net to leave the visitors with a mountain to climb.

Pritchard then went agonisingly close with a left-footed drive before Gomelt scored his second goal of the match in the 24th minute, reacting quickest to a loose ball in the Inter penalty area.

The lads continued to dominate the game and went further ahead in the 30th minute courtesy of a classic counter-attack. Laste Dombaxe made a powerful burst down the right-hand side before providing an inch-perfect cross for the outstanding Coulibaly to finish from close range.

Jonathan Miles was forced into his first save of the match in the 36th minute before we effectively ended any hopes of an Inter comeback less than a minute later as Gomelt completed his hat-trick and made the score 6-0.

However, the Croatian then had his afternoon cut short when he was adjudged to have denied Inter a goal-scoring opportunity and was sent to the stands as Inter were awarded a penalty. Daniel Bessa made no mistake from 12 yards leaving the score at 6-1 going into the break.

The second half was a different test for the lads as Inter tried to make their numerical advantage count, but Miles and his solid defence were equal to anything that was thrown at them.

The only goal in the second half came in the 68th minute and was the pick of the bunch as Pritchard capped an excellent performance with a superb free-kick into the top right-hand corner from 25 yards.

Coulibaly then went on the hunt for his hat-trick, although it wasn’t to be as his audacious chip went just over the crossbar to leave the score at 7-1 at the final whistle.

The lads find themselves top of Group 4 with four points from their opening two fixtures. Next up will be a trip to face PSV Eindhoven on 28th September.

Spurs (4-4-1-1): Miles; Barthram, Veljkovic, Stewart (Olaya, 73), Day; Pritchard, Nicholson (Ceballos, 46), Luongo (Hawkins, 75), Gomelt; Dombaxe; Coulibaly. Unused Subs: Granger, Munns.

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