IHMFA at Ellesmere College – 10
Ludlow School – 1
Date: Wednesday 4th October 2023
Venue: Away
Competition: U19’s league
IH Manchester football academy goal scorers:
Sacha Connesson x4
Alex Sharpe x 2
Sodjantsan Battuvshin
Senthwale Muya
Archie Floate
Marcus Collins
The IHM at Ellesmere U19s had a great boost in the league this week, knocking in 10 goals, away to Ludlow school. It was actually the team’s second half performance that earned them victory, after a slow start.
As the game kicked off, the home side were the ones who started quicker and stronger. In fact, they took an early lead after some sloppy play by IHM at Ellesmere. In the opening few minutes of the game it looked like IHM at Ellesmere were slow out the starting blocks, needing to move the ball quicker and be patient as a team during the build-up phase of play.
10 minutes into the game, and after the wake up call of going one goal down, the visitors began to control the game a little more and got into their stride, managing to level up before half time, to go into the break at 1-1.
The second half was a different story. The fitness session in the initial few weeks of the programme and the work in the gym with Darren shone through, with the IHM at Ellesmere side being by far the fittest team. It was then one-way traffic for the whole of the second period. Sasha completed a well earned hat-trick and added one more to that tally, Alex got a brace then Sodjantsan, Sen, Archie and Marcus all getting on the score sheet. This put the visitors into double figures and led to them coming out well deserving winners.
Lead coach Brandon said:
“A great result for the lads that will really instil a lot of confidence. We still have areas that we need to improve on, so scoring 10 doesn’t mean we are the finished article by any means.
We need to start games better and think about retaining that possession early on to dictate the play. We must be little more patient in the build-up and quickly work out how to break teams down.
Overall, great to see the lads do so well, in the second half especially and to see so many of them wanting to get on
he scoresheet. That’s when you know you have control of a game and to be fair to them, once they got into their stride it was a one-sided game and we could have had more.
We will come up against some strong sides in this league, so we need to think more about starting strongly. But, a great week for the lads.”
The IHM at Ellesmere team have a packed schedule of fixtures this term, with games again next week. If you’d like to be part of the IHM at Ellesmere team and join the academy in January or next academic year, contact us now for a player appraisal and to learn about all options.
