This repeat of last year’s FA Cup Youth final is nicely poised before Wednesday evening’s decisive second leg at Stamford Bridge. Until Aaron Nemane’s 67th-minute intervention Chelsea were cruising into the return with a lead courtesy of Mason Mount and were in a fine position to retain the trophy and record a fourth triumph in five years.
The second half had been five minutes old when Trevoh Chalobah motored along the right and pinged the ball inside. There was an expertly placed Mount, who is 17 and signed professional terms in January, to finish past Daniel Grimshaw.
City were disjointed yet they would not give in. The equaliser came from their smoothest move. Brahim Diaz passed to Lukas Nmecha and he fed Nemane who slid a superb finish beyond Nathan Baxter.
The City coach, Jason Wilcox, said: “I’m delighted with the lads, we showed a
lot of pride and the tie’s still open. We believe in ourselves. We’ll go
down to Chelsea in good spirits and see what the night brings. I’m fully
confident we’re capable of winning.”
To see if City could defeat the side who beat them in last year’s showpiece the first-team squad, led by Vincent Kompany, Yaya Touré and Sergio Agüero, were present. So, too, were Steve McClaren, recently of Newcastle United, and Aidy Boothroyd, the England Under-19 manager, who according to Chelsea’s technical director, Michael Emenalo, is particularly impressed with Jake Clarke-Salter, 18, and 16-year-old Fikayo Tomori.
Clarke-Salter, who captained Chelsea, enjoyed his big time debut this month when playing the last 16 minutes of the 4-0 trouncing of Aston Villa. And in the new Premier League arms race of honing first-team ready footballers from home-reared talent Clarke-Salter was one of a whole visiting 16-man squad who are “England qualified”.
Clarke-Salter, a central defender, left-back, Tomori, the forward Dujon Sterling, and holding player, Mukhtar Ali, were also in the side that beat Paris Saint-Germain, 2-1, on Monday night in Nyon to claim the Uefa Youth League, the Under-19 equivalent of the Champions League.
For City, the academy head, Mike Allen, said beforehand that “nine of the starting XI are Manchester boys”. But this confused – Diaz and Manu García are Spaniards, respectively joining from Málaga and Sporting Gijón, and Rodney Kongolo is Dutch, signed from Feynoord.
Chelsea, arranged by Joe Edwards in a fluid 4-3-3, could be the happier with their work as the break neared. The right-back, Chalobah, the 16-year-old younger brother of Nathaniel, muscled along his flank before banging over a cross Grimshaw did well to beat away.
Earlier Nmecha, German-born and England-eligible, was clean through on Baxter. But despite steadying himself, City’s No9 hit the ball straight at the goalkeeper.
Wednesday now becomes a one-game showdown.
