Colchester United under-21s beat Preston North End
COLCHESTER United’s under-21s saw off Preston North End 2-1 in their final Premier League Cup group game, writes BRIAN WALLER.
Six trialists featured for Liam Bailey’s side, as the U’s kept their chances of qualifying alive after they scored a late winner to move up to second in the table.
To lose that spot, Blackburn Rovers will need to beat QPR when their postponed match gets re-arranged.
In a fairly low key first half, there was an early late challenge on Max Jolliffe which just resulted in a free-kick on five minutes. Then a sloppy U’s pass nearly put them under pressure but the ball in was easily caught by Trialist keeper A.
On 26 minutes there was a booking for Ollie Godziemski when he caught centre half Peter Critchley in an aerial challenge.
Trialist C’s ball down the line found Kai Martin but he rather mis-hit his shot well off the target.
The U’s then grabbed the lead shortly before half-time as Martin sent in a left wing corner which the keeper failed to hold and seemed to knock it back closely to the goal where Hakeem Sandah smashed it into the net on 42 minutes.
After half-time, Martin followed a team-mate trialist D into the referee”s book and Johnny Brindle fired the resulting free kick well over the bar.
Having booked three home players, Preston indiscretions amazingly were going unpunished.
On the hour mark Ronnie Harvey was on for Martin and for the away side Somto Ifezue was on six minutes later.
Then amongst a tangle of legs the referee somehow deemed it to be a Preston penalty which Johnny Brindle put away, with 20 minutes to go.
A good run by Sandah saw the loose ball run out to Max Jolliffe whose shot flashed just wide.
When the Preston keeper crashed into Ollie Godziemski, the referee deemed it not to be a U’s penalty.
Colchester won it late on when Rash Drysdale collected Jolliffe’s pass and scored with a cross shot.
Colchester United U21: Trialist A, Trialist B, Max Jolliffe, Trialist C, Trialist D, Rash Drysdale, Trialist E, Ollie Godziemski, Kai Martin, Hakeem Sandah, Trialist F. Subs: Jack Sexton, Ronnie Harvey, Fela Abidkun, Owen Moore, Alex Kokoshi.
