West Ham United's Under-18s are still in with an outside chance of winning the FA Premier Academy League Group A title after scoring a 2-0 win over Leicester City.
Nick Haycock's side completed their slate of home fixtures for the 2011/12 season with a fine victory over the Foxes, who began the weekend top of the Group B table themselves. Elliot Lee opened the scoring with a penalty before a staunch defensive display was rewarded with a breakaway goal from Blair Turgott.
Saturday's success means the Hammers could go into their final game of the season at MK Dons on 28 April with an opportunity to win the title. However, third-place West Ham need to thrash their opponents and receive a huge amount of help to finish in top spot.
Leaders Arsenal are three points ahead and need to lose at Birmingham City, while second-place Southampton need to pick up just one point from their final two matches. Fourth-place Fulham - a point behind West Ham - have three games remaining, while fifth-place Charlton Athletic have four matches left to play.
FA Premier Academy League Group A - top six
|
Team |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
Pts |
|
|
1 |
Arsenal |
27 |
15 |
4 |
8 |
53 |
36 |
+17 |
49 |
|
2 |
Southampton |
26 |
13 |
8 |
5 |
53 |
28 |
+25 |
47 |
|
3 |
West Ham United |
27 |
14 |
4 |
9 |
53 |
41 |
+12 |
46 |
|
4 |
Fulham |
25 |
15 |
0 |
10 |
63 |
44 |
+19 |
45 |
|
5 |
Charlton Athletic |
24 |
13 |
5 |
6 |
50 |
25 |
+25 |
44 |
|
6 |
Crystal Palace |
27 |
13 |
5 |
9 |
47 |
42 |
+5 |
44 |
U18s coach Haycock admitted his side's title chances might be slim, but he was justifiably proud of the fine result they achieved against Leicester on Saturday.
"Leicester were a good team," he said. "They were top of their league going into the game and were really going for it. We had a young side out but we rose to the challenge.
"I played [first-year professional] Eoin Wearen at centre-back as Leo Chambers was away with England and a couple of the Under-16s were injured. Eoin was terrific. We don't play over-age players too often but we needed to. He showed a great attitude and the lads responded to him.
"The first half was tight but we went in front when Kieran Bywater got himself into the box and was brought down and Elliot tucked away the penalty. The game then ebbed and flowed for the remainder of the half and both teams had chances.
"In the second half, they were playing in our half as much as they could, but we defended resolutely from the front and worked really hard. We broke away on the counter-attack and doubled our lead through Blair.
"Leicester will be disappointed not to have scored at least one goal late on, but we also had a few chances. It was a good, solid performance from the whole team and Sam Baxter in goal made a good save with the score at 1-0.
"We now go into our final game at MK Dons knowing we could finish anywhere from first to sixth in the table!"
West Ham United U18s: Baxter, Young, Wearen, K.Lee, Shaw, Turgott, Miles (Fanimo 87), Ruddock, Bywater (Powell 81), Sadlier, E.Lee
Subs not used: Brown, Nasha, Boakye-Yiadom