Spurs under 18’s versus West Ham United: (match preview)

Our under 18’s begin this seasons premier league cup campaign on Saturday morning when they take on West Ham at Little Heath, in their first group game of the competition. Matt Taylor’s side recorded an impressive 2-0 league win over Southampton last Saturday and they’ll be hoping to build on that victory tomorrow by getting off to the perfect start in the competition. We lost 3-2 to the ‘ Hammers ‘ in a league game less than two weeks ago. That game was a typical London derby, with plenty of meaty challenges and feistiness however, Spurs came up short on that day and they lost a game in which was very end to end. West Ham occupy fourth spot in the under 18 premier league south, having won three and drawn two of their six league games. Some of the ‘ Hammers ‘ young attacking talents to look out for tomorrow include centre forward Veron Parkes, midfielder Sebastian Nebyla and attacking fullback Samuel Caiger. Other players to look out for is towering centre half Will Greenidge, midfielder Lennon Peake and winger Kamarai Simon-Swyer. West Ham seemed to play with a lot of width during our last meeting with them. Furthermore, the ‘ Hammers ‘ were attacking and positive in their all round play.  With this being a cup game I would expect Matt Taylor to rotate his squad and possibly play players who haven’t had a lot of minutes this season. Namely Malachi Walcott and Yago Alonso. Also, the fact that our under 19’s have an important UEFA youth league game against Bayern Munich on Tuesday could mean that some players are rested for the trip to east London. I wish all of our lads all the very best of luck for tomorrow’s cup match, let’s hope that we can avenge the other weeks narrow defeat to our London rivals. Unfortunately and very unusually for me, I will be unable to report on tomorrow’s game as it doesn’t really leave me enough time to get to the main game afterwards.

My predicted lineup: (4-2-3-1) Kurylowicz (c), Cesay, Muir, Walcott, Lusala, Robson, Alonso, Cooper, Pedder, Whittaker, Asante.

Subs from: Lo-Tutala, Mundle, John, Bennett, Scarlett.

Injured/unavailable: Dennis Cirkin, Michael Craig.

Doubtful: Jeremy Kyezu, Matthew Craig, Nile John, J’Neil Bennett.

Previous meeting: Spurs 2-3.

My score prediction: Spurs 3-1.

My one to watch: The ‘ Hammers ‘ top scorer last season with eight goals, Veron Parkes. The second year scholar is a physical player and he could prove to be a handful for the Spurs defence tomorrow. Parkes scored against us in that 3-2 defeat earlier this month.