FA Youth Cup tonight - Come on Kids!

[Adam]

I'm not suprised. The team played was not as strong as first thought:

Arsenal team: Mark Howard; Dorian Small, Sam Oji, Johan Djourou, Hassan Sulaiman; Ryan Smith, Neil Kilkenny, Patrick Cregg, Stephen O’Donnell (Dean McDonald 59); Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, Anthony Stokes. Not used: Michael Jordan, Aaron Samuel, Matthew Hislop, Dominic Shimmin.

 

[IHateJam]

Yes, sadly it was 2:0 to saints. They had a much bigger thirst for the game and have some very talented footballers. Every attack they made looked threatening even though Johan Djourou played very well (although a few mistakes were made at the back). Saints were closing our players down throughout the whole match whereas we would hold off their players when they had possession.

Having said that there was some promising talent on show; Ryan Smith did his best to control midfield and showed great skill making most of the chances we got. Patrick Cregg also played a strong role in midfield captaining the side. As I said before, Djourou played well at the back cutting out many passes that could have led to goals and also showed a strong presence in the air. Anthony Stokes hardly got hold of the ball so didnt get a chance to show his quality. I was unimpressed with Quincy Owusu-Abeyie. After watching him come on as a sub in the Carling Cup match against Rotherham I was looking forward to seeing him again tonight however he didnt have the interest in this game as he did against rotherham. He was obviously upset not getting a great supply and lost interest early on. He did show some great skill and worked a couple of goal scoring chances by himself skipping past a few southampton defenders but sometimes there were too many tricks and lost the ball. Dean McDonald had a great presence in midfield when he came on and helped keep possession but by this time it was too late.

All in all pretty disappointing but all hope is not yet lost. I really hope Quincy can get over any attitude problems and shine as the great player he can be.

 

[Adam]

Quincy supposedly has a very poor attitude. A guy i was speaking to on the Beveren site had to interview him - and he wasn't impressed:

"Quincy on the wing, you must be joking. He is to lazy to run one yard extra. The word 'defense' is not in his dictionary. I know a guy who played with him in Holland under 19. He stated that he has to work more playing for Holland then in Arsenal. "I only have to run when we have the ball", were kinda his words.

Further, I think, he is a guy with an attitude. When I interviewd him, he looked very arrogant to me. He told me escpecially there was no chance he wants to play for Beveren, because he was now playing for a top club and he said that he didn't leave Ajax to become a player from Beveren. He forgot to say that he did not leave Ajax but he was thrown out by them.
Further, I heard some strang things about him in Holland. He did not sometimes showed up for training and he also was often too late. The word is that he was having the wrong friends were he lived. Maybe moving to London was good for him, so could not be influenced any more by them.

I admit he is a great player when he has the ball, but he has to realize that he has to work also on the pitch. Even Henry does his share, why shouldn't he?"

 

[wiltord11]

yeh hes top quality player though i hope he plays on tuesday night when he played against rotherham he played the 30 minutes extra time and he looked a danger all the time and he has bags full of tricks and he nearly scored

 

[koivu]

I was also at last night's match, my first time seeing any Arsenal side play live...I've only been here for 2 weeks!

As mentioned above, Quincy didn't seem interested the full 90 minutes and often gave up as soon as posession was lost...If you look at Titi, he will turn it up a notch when this happens and even run back into his own half to chase down opponents like in the Leeds FA Cup match...Quincy has some CRAZY skill with the ball, he skinned a couple of guys and had a couple nice runs. He's got the tools, hopefully he can continue to make progress.

As for Ryan Smith, he's clearly got some skill as well...these 2 guys stood out for the Arsenal side, and that Stokes kid flashed skill on the couple of occasions when he got the ball.

With regards to Sam Oji, he looked pretty good but made a few mistakes. Still played alright.

All in all, I was impressed with the skill that some of these guys have...coming from Canada, i have never really seen players who are so young yet so talented. A pity that we lost but Southampton deserved it I suppose.