Alfie Matthews scored a lovely curling effort for a 10-man Arsenal u18 side in a draw with Norwich City on Wednesday.
Despite Alfie Matthews’ goal, the u18s really don’t have much luck at the moment. They started the season by losing a number of key players to the u23s. Since then, they’ve had quite a few injury problems, and Wednesday’s match was no different.
Joel Lopez, who recently made his u23 debut, started against Norwich for the u18s on this occasion. He only lasted 21 minutes though, coming off with an injury. Ben Cottrell and a Thomas Dickson-Peters penalty made it 1-1 at half-time.
In the second half, Ken Gillard made two more early substitutions, bringing on Alfie Matthews and Matthew Dennis. Unfortunately, Dennis quickly joined Lopez on the injury table, leaving the team with 10 men for the final 20 minutes.
Nonetheless, the other substitute Matthews thought he’d scored a winner when he curled one in a few minutes later. That makes it three goals in four league games for him.
— Dan Critchlow (@afcDWvid) February 13, 2020
Sadly, Norwich responded again in injury time for 2-2. Arsenal sit 10th of 12 teams in the u18 Premier League, and it really seems like they’ve saved all their luck and good performances for the FA Youth Cup, where they recently qualified for the quarter-finals.
The media recently linked Alfie Matthews with a potential move to Newcastle United. For now, that’s just paper talk.