Our under-21s wrapped up their 2022/23 Premier League 2 campaign as they hosted league leaders, Manchester City, in a difficult clash at Meadow Park on Saturday afternoon.
We found ourselves facing a two-goal deficit inside the first 20 minutes, when goals from City midfielder Micah Hamilton and winger Ben Knight, put the Sky Blues ahead.
Defensively, we looked sharp but it just wasn’t enough to keep the City attack at bay.
Catalin Cirjan and Amario Cozier-Duberry presented some magical link-ups to try and get us back into the game, however an injury to Cirjan forced Mehmet Ali to make an early substitution, bringing Ethan Nwaneri off the bench to replace the Romanian midfielder.
We headed into the break two goals down and needed to inject a new lease of life into the squad if we were to stay in the game.
Things took a turn for the worse five minutes into the second half when Manchester City’s top scorer Carlos Borges gave the visitors their third, and our young Gunners continued to press for a chance to bring us back into the game but we just couldn’t quite bring anything to fruition.
WHAT IT MEANS
The result, as it stands, sees us remain in seventh place with the possibility of having Everton match us on 34 points if they win their game against bottom-of-the-league Leicester City on Monday.
TEAM NEWS
Arsenal: Graczyk, Robinson (Lewis-Skelly, 59), Monlouis (c), Awe, Sousa, Henry-Francis, Cirjan (Nwaneri, 37), Cottrell, Cozier-Duberry, Sagoe Jr, Edwards (Ibrahim, 69)
Subs not used: Cooper, Gower
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