Before They Were Famous

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Tuesday 25 April 2023
Result	Arsenal U18 1 West Ham United U18 5
Competition	FA Youth Cup 2022-23 Final
Hopstats	My third visit to the Emirates Stadium. Impulsive purchase when I stumbled across the fixture earlier in the day.
Context
Routes to the final: Arsenal: Millwall (h) 6-0, Newcastle U (a) 3-2, Watford (a) 4-2 (from 0-2 down), Cambridge U (h) 3-2, Manchester C (h) 2-1 aet. West Ham: Sheffield U (a) 3-1, Burnley (a) 1-0, Stoke C (a) 4-1, Ipswich T (a) 4-2 aet, Southampton (h) 6-1. In their league campaign, West Ham have considerably out-performed Arsenal and won the U18 South division by a huge margin. Arsenal are managed by Jack Wilshere, West Ham by Kevin Keen.
In One Sentence
A promising start by Arsenal was washed away by a ruthlessly efficient performance from West Ham once the team had settled.
So What?
West Ham win this trophy for the first time since 1999 and the days of Michael Carrick and Joe Cole.
Match Report
The sensible ticket pricing had attracted a crowd of 34,000 of which 7,000 were filling the visitors’ section. They were in very good voice and the first action of note saw West Ham keeper Mason Terry make a flying save to keep out a free-kick by Michal Rosiak. Arsenal looked comfortable on the ball and clearly practise turning on the proverbial sixpence. It wasn’t long before they took a deserved lead. A surging but unchallenged run was made from his own half by Ruell Walters, who fed the ball out to Amario Cozier-Duberry, who’d already looked dangerous when running at defenders. Terry pushed the first shot away but the ball fell to Omari Benjamin on the left corner of the box, and he finished superbly. West Ham kept their heads and the equaliser came from another direct run down Route One. George Earthy found the back of the net and headed for the corner flag to celebrate in front of the home fans like a real pro. In just one more minute they took the lead. Callum Marshall had a tap-in to finish an incisive move down the right ending with Gideon Kodua’s cross. The celebration was duly repeated. The game then settled into a less frenetic pattern. Arsenal kept probing, though sometimes you could detect priority given to keeping the ball rather than risking a threatening move. Then, just before half-time, disaster. A miskick by Josh Robinson in the Arsenal defence let in Kodua who lifted the ball over home keeper Noah Cooper from distance. This prompted a celebration at the opposite corner flag, and an Arsenal team huddle at the instigation of captain Bradley Ibrahim. It would be essential for Arsenal to score first in the second half, and they created several half chances. Cozier-Duberry hit the side netting after good approach play from Robinson, and Terry made a close-range block from Rosiak. Cooper saved well to deny Earthy a second goal. Generally, though, West Ham kept a good shape and looked defensively brave and strong despite the efforts of the Arsenal subs. As time ebbed away, a growing sense of frustration spilled over and we saw two yellow cards at the end of some pushing and shoving. West Ham added two late goals from corners of their own, the first of which started the exodus from the home sections. The scorers were Kaelan Casey with a far-post header and Josh Briggs with his first touch. On the final whistle, another Arsenal huddle for managerial words of wisdom, and West Ham heading to their own supporters. I was willing to wait for the presentation but the setting up of the corporate staging took far too long, so it was time to head back to the trains. This was undeniably a great occasion for these young players, and I’ve listed all the names below so we can look back in a few years to see which ones break through to the elite level. The only advice I can sensibly give? Ditch the yellow shirt, Noah. No good will come of it … Arsenal U18 West Ham U18 Noah Cooper (gk, yellow) Mason Terry (gk, grey) Michal Rosiak Oliver Scarles Josh Robinson Regan Clayton Reuell Walters Kaelan Casey (Sean Tarima 79) Lino Sousa Ryan Battrum (Josh Briggs 90) Bradley Ibrahim (c) Lewis Orford Myles Lewis-Skelly Patrick Kelly Jimi Gower (Osman Kamara 46) George Earthy (Daniel Rigge 85) Amario Cozier-Duberry Gideon Kodua Omari Benjamin  (Sebastian Ferdinand 85) Divin Mubama Ethan Nwaneri Callum Marshall
Ground Pix
This is an undeniably impressive stadium, and the club leaves you in no doubt about its history, its characters, and its intended culture. The reminders cover the vast majority of internal and external wall space. I combined the game with a chance for some exercise, walking the two-and-a-bit miles each way from St Pancras Station, which takes around 45 minutes at moderate pace.
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
Usually accompanied by a pre-match prediction on Twitter just before kickoff. Working towards being able to compute a respectable statistical significance test by the end of the season. The full keeper top performance table from my last 269 matches is here, on this separate page. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Away Win Was the prediction correct? Yes % of correct predictions so far 44% (55 from 124) Based on conventional 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw, but also -1pt for a goal conceded (GC) and +5pts for a clean sheet (CS).  Colours ranked on a points per game (PPG) basis. The odd decimal places were caused either by undeniable half-and-half tops or lower league sub keepers in a different colour.  The Fire Cracker colour was confirmed with the help of the social media team at Dulux UK.  All of this arises from a comment attributed to Petr Cech (and supported by anonymous scientists of some description) that orange is the best colour for a goalkeeper because it changes the behaviour of other players around the box. It is supposedly because of an innate primeval human reaction to the colour and the colour “spreads” more in the vision of a striker at the key moment of decision. Genius or garbage? The evidence is gathering here, and is leaning towards the latter.
What Next?
Follow @GrahamYapp on Twitter! I’ll also be going to Arsenal v Wolfsburg in the semi-final second leg of the Women’s Champions League at the same stadium next Monday. At the time of writing, 55k tickets have been sold.