The winning goal arrived just five minutes from time as Sean Grace sent the ball high between Michael Hassini and Tatham for Afie Obafemi to chase. Luke Chambers came to the edge of his penalty area and attempted to punch the bal to safety, but he succeeded only in hitting it onto Tatham’s head, with the ball rebounding into the net for an own goal.
“I was speaking to one of their coaches, and he said that it was like they’ve won the World Cup, the Gold Cup and the National Lottery,” Blues’ Head of Youth Ricky Duncan said after the game. “We have dominated the match, but one moment of sloppy defending has cost us this morning.”
“That’s two 1-0 defeats now, and we have had the better chances to win both games, but we must learn to deal with the ball over the top better. That will come in time, because this is a very young team and they are gaining experience all the time, but it will be very difficult for us to get out of the group now,” Duncan, who watched from the pavilion balcony as he served a suspension, conceded.
Even after Orient had scored, the Shrimpers had a multitude of opportunities to grab an equaliser against the hosts, who had been reduced to ten men in the 53rd minute when full-back Joe O’Donoghue was adjudged to have denied Marlon Agyakwa an obvious goalscoring opportunity after tugging the winger back on the edge of the box.
First Anthony Furlonge glanced Mitchell Pinnock’s long throw across the face of goal, then the same player galloped onto a return pass from Seedy Njie before smashing his shot over the crossbar. Hassini saw a downward header deflected wide before, in the eighth minute of added time, Njie’s desperate overhead bicycle kick flew over from a Pinnock centre.
Southend had started the match well, and O’s goalkeeper Yilmaz Aksoy spilled an early Furlonge cross just out of the reach of Jack Payne before Grace covered well to hustle Shamir Mullings away from goal after Ryan Auger had found the front man.
Chambers’ first action was to stop a fierce Elyon Egbeku strike, but play switched immediately to the other end where Mullings slid Furlonge’s lofted ball past Aksoy, only for centre-back Jack Dekanski to clear off the goal-line.
Jack Edwards then nodded a swinging Auger free-kick just wide before, at the other end, Dekanski went even closer to breaking the deadlock as he nodded Rob Nash’s corner against the outside of the left-hand upright.
Orient were beginning to match the Shrimpers, and Nash’s driven effort was side-footed straight at Chambers by a forward two minutes before half-time, although in the period between then and the break, Agyakwa was unlucky to see his rasping shot from an acute angle skilfully tipped onto the underside of the crossbar by Aksoy.
Southend began the second half on top, and Edwards had already helped a Furlonge effort from an Agyakwa corner wide of the post before the winger was cynically hauled back by O’Donoghue as he attempted to race onto Mullings’ header, resulting in the red card.
Njie and Jack Paxman were introduced as Blues started to increase the pressure on the Orient goal, and Aksoy parried out an Agyakwa drive before Harrison Georghiou skewed wide at the other end on a rare breakaway.
Twin Agyakwa corners caused trouble as the mid-point of the second period approached, with Paxman digging out a left-footed shot that was deflected wide and Aksoy then thwarting Njie’s header at full-stretch. The shotstopper then managed to fingertip Agyakwa’s vicious bouncing effort around the post.
With fourteen minutes remaining, the woodwork kept Blues at bay again as Tatham nodded Pinnock’s free-kick into the path of Furlonge, who almost cracked the crossbar with a ferocious shot that rebounded to safety. All of that was before the frenetic finale and a cruel twist of fate, leaving Duncan and his team to hope for better luck on Saturday when they travel to Dagenham & Redbridge.
Southend United U18s: Luke Chambers, Anthony Furlonge, Robert Hyams, Michael Hyland, Aaron Tatham, Michael Hassini, Ryan Auger, Jack Edwards (Jack Paxman 56), Shamir Mullings (Seedy Njie 63), Jack Payne (Mitchell Pinnock 71), Marlon Agyakwa.
Substitutes not used: Harry Jeffrey, James Pinnock.
Cautioned: Pinnock (72 – foul tackle), Njie (90+5 – handball), Auger (90+7 – dissent).
Thanks to the Shrimpers Trust website for the reprinting of these reports, for the Trust's own youth section: www.shrimperstrust.co.uk