Development Squad remain unbeaten in league with win over Lincoln United U17’s

Todays game we welcomed Lincoln United U17s to the Easy Buy for the second time this season and our 3rd game against them overall.

Our previous two meetings we had managed two wins; 3-0 in the league and 6-3 in the cup so we were expecting them to set up defensively. Unfortunately they only brought 10 men so that set the tone for the game. They went straight into damage limitation mode and put all 10 behind the ball.

The lads got the ball down and set about trying to carve a way through the resolute whites defence. The ball was permanently in their half apart from any long cleared balls which was probably a relief to Hewitt in goal who was covering the GK position after Kuehn damaged his fingers in training.

After 20 mins of battering at Lincoln’s door, Seb Parker looped a fantastic ball into the box for Finley to loop a great header into the Lincoln net and finally break the deadlock. The battering continued with good attempts to get down the wings met with doubling up by Lincoln on our wingers.

After 35 minutes some good work down the left from Forman, Croft and Finley released Burnett into the box and had an attempt blocked and managed to poke the ball back to Finley who dragged the ball away from a defender in the box brilliantly and danced passed another before curling a ball round the keeper and in for his second of the game, third brace of the season and 7th goal of the campaign.

For the remainder of the first half the game remained in one half with both teams getting frustrated with the game with lots of niggles between players, referees and coaches.

2nd half was much of the same until ten minutes in Parker burst through towards the edge of the box and was brought down for a free kick around 20 yards out. Burnett put the ball down and got it round the wall and into the corner for his 12th of the season.

The game finished 3-0 in what was a very poor game to watch by virtue of tactics Lincoln employed to try and mitigate the situation but 3 points and the lads continue their unbeaten season in the league. Special thanks to Ethan Hewitt for doing a great job in stepping in last minute to cover Kuehn and while didn’t have much to do still did a great job and kept a clean sheet.