Say We Are Top Of The League

[White Noise]

Top of the Table


Wednesday 9th November 2011





Fulham's Under 18s went three points clear at the top of Group A of the Premier Academy League with a 2-1 victory over Charlton Athletic last weekend. The win highlighted the excellent work Kit Symons and his players have been producing this season.

"I've been really pleased with the way the boys have performed and also their application – the way they've approached games," Symons reflected. "I said at the start of the season that we're not the biggest physically, whereas last season we were quite strong. But we've got some really good technical players.

"We can't compete with a lot of these teams if it gets to a physical battle, but we need to be able to compete and challenge. We've got one way of playing and that's to get the ball down and pass it quickly with good movement.

"The players have really taken that on board and the results so far have shown that we're trying to do the right things.

"We played Charlton on Saturday, they are a good side with big players up front. Physically they were a lot stronger than us, they had good pace up top and good movement. We knew we had to compete with them and we did, we defended really well and restricted them largely to shots from distance.

"We were two-nil up going into the 92nd minute when we conceded a goal, but that wasn't a bad thing because it allowed me to give the boys some stick. Overall, we defended against a big, strong side really well.



"We've still got a lot of work to do, but the players are showing a fantastic attitude, a real togetherness as a group and a winning mentality – you can't ask for much more."

Over the course of the season so far Symons' players have also produced fine form away from home, with key victories coming against Birmingham City, Aston Villa and Arsenal.

"We've had some fantastic away results," Symons agreed. "We won against Birmingham earlier on in the season and we beat Aston Villa 4-0 away from home, which was an excellent performance. We also beat Arsenal 4-3 away. You know going to Arsenal is always going to be a good football match because they always get the ball down and pass it.

"When we started off it was an absolute horror show. We were 2-0 down after about six minutes – so I wasn't in the best of moods, as you could imagine. In playing a team like Arsenal, you expect them to create great chances, but when you actually gift them two goals you're giving yourself a mountain to climb.

"Full credit to the character of the players, we came in at half-time 3-2 up. Arsenal then pulled it back to 3-3 before we got the winner towards the end of the game.

"It was an interesting game; me and Steve Bould were pulling our hair out. Actually, Bouldy was pulling out what little hair he had left and mine just went even greyer. For two ex-centre-halves on the line – the defending from our teams was unbelievable.

"To win at Arsenal is always a good result. Football is about winning games, ideally you want to do it in the right way but sometimes you can't do that – you've got to grind results out. You've got to be able to win different games in different ways. That's part of the boys' education, if you just teach them to win nice games of football you're doing them a disservice."

Despite his side topping the table, Symons has also identified areas where his team still needs to improve upon.

"Over the course of the season, we've conceded goals very early and late on in games," he explained. "That's happened a couple of times in really good performances, which stopped us getting a clean sheet.

"We need to tighten up, we play some fantastic attacking football and that starts from whichever keeper we've got in goal. They start the play from the back and we look to pass through midfield. The attacking as a team has been excellent at times this year – but we can tighten up on the defending.

"There's a real good work ethic here, they work ever so hard during the week in training and that's reflected in the way we play in games. After the Arsenal game, for example, their physio came up to us and said, 'you've got some really fit players there'. It was a really hot day and we looked fit and strong at the end of the game – which is testament to the work our fitness and conditioning guys do with the players."
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Read more: http://www.fulhamfc.com/Club/News/NewsArticles/2011/November/SymonsAcademyUpdate.aspx#ixzz1dCGv8Lin

[Burt]

Just goes to reinforce that beneath the first team there is some good stuff going on and we will hopefully get to realise the benefits of that some time downstream.

Hats off to Mr Symons  :clap_hands:

[finnster01]

Well done to the young lads  :clap_hands: