FA Youth Cup 5th round, Tue 9 February 1999Arsenal 0 (0) Crystal Palace 0 (0)Arsenal: Stuart Taylor; John Halls (Claydon Cowell ~85), Ashley Cole, Greg Oates, Rhys
Weston; David Noble (Leon Britton ~75), James Harper, Guillaume Norbert, Graham
Barrett; Danny Boateng (Keith Fahey ~60), Jay Bothroyd Palace: Lee Kendall; Scott Gooding, Jonathan Boardman, Richard
Harris, Sean Hankin; Stephen Hunt, Ryan Williams, Michael Fowler, Steven
Evans; Rosco D'Sane, Steven Kabba Ref: B Knight (Kent) A bitterly cold night at Highbury, and a match that didn't do a great deal to warm up the watching crowd, truth be told. Arsenal fielded a team which was a mixture of regulars from the U19 and U17 sides, but on balance Palace probably had marginally the better of the game, mainly because their habit of lobbing in long passes and throws caused the greater problems for the Arsenal defence. Barrett played most of the game on the left wing, Norbert on the right, with Bothroyd and Boateng up front. Early on Norbert was the one to catch the eye with some skilful running on the ball. One run in particular went past about 3 players on the right before he clipped over a cross from the byline which was just taken off Boateng's head by a defender. As far as I remember though, Bothroyd was the only one in the 1st half to actually bring a save from the keeper. Following a good Arsenal break he fired in a shot from the edge of the area which was virtually straight at the keeper, when he might have been better off playing in Norbert on his right. Otherwise there was slightly more goalmouth action at the other end. One break down the right ended with a cross-cum-shot which Taylor just managed to deflect away from his goal. A cross from the left also caused problems but Cole dived full length to head away from the Palace striker in the middle who was otherwise all on his own. After about 15 minutes of the second half, the young Irish midfielder Keith Fahey came on to replace Boateng, and Barrett moved up front. Arsenal still struggled to make any real inroads into the Palace area though, and few minutes later the unfortunately named Leon Britton replaced David Noble and went out onto the left wing. At the other end, the main problems for the Arsenal defence were being caused by the tremendous long throws being launched into the area by the big centre half Richard Harris. At least two of these were allowed to drop in the 6yd box, but fortunately the Palace forwards were slow reacting and the danger was cleared. The closest Palace came to a goal was a 20 yard shot which dipped and missed the top corner by a foot or so. Probably the most exciting bit of the game was the flare up midway through the half. I think it was Weston who went in hard, but fairly I thought, on a Palace player near the touchline around halfway. The Palace no 2 for some reason took exception to the tackle and rushed in to remonstrate physically. A bit of mass pushing and shoving ensued and ended up with two Palace players and Cole being booked. The game did open up a bit in the final 15-20 minutes and became a bit more end to end. Norbert appeared to push further forward in the final few minutes, and Arsenal did get the ball in the net when some short passing on the edge of the area ended with the ball being pushed through to Cole. Not quite sure what he was doing there, but he slotted the ball past the keeper only to be denied by the offside flag. A rather disappointing game overall. The French lad Norbert stood out early on with his running with the ball. The diminutive Britton also caught my eye with his quick feet and neat touch, Harper was neat and tidy in midfield, and Weston was fairly composed and competent at the back. Bothroyd has good feet for one so lanky, and Barrett worked as hard as ever. Derek
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