Eastbourne Borough U19 Suffer 4-1 Away Defeat To Ebbsfleet United

02 February 2023

Bexhill College in association with Chelsea Football Club Foundation and in partnership with Eastbourne Borough Football Club suffered a 4-1 defeat away to Ebbsfleet in the National League U19 Alliance. 

In tough conditions and on a difficult surface, neither team were able to produce any sustained periods of quality football within a game which quickly became focused on effort and minimising mistakes. Eastbourne found themselves 1-0 behind after 15 minutes when a shot from the edge of the box bobbled into the bottom right hand corner. 

Calum Pollitt found an equaliser minutes later from a Jake Prodger freekick which had bounced around the Ebbsfleet 6-yard box, which led to Eastbourne enjoying their strongest period of the game, defending well and breaking quickly on the counter-attack. Disaster struck for Eastbourne when they conceded two goals within 5 minutes on the stroke of half-time from two defensive errors to leave them with a difficult task in the 2nd period.

Eastbourne started the 2nd period well, applying pressure to the Ebbsfleet goal but conceded to a counter-attack to all but end their hopes of taking anything back to East Sussex. Connor Mcmanus and Logan Copley each missed good chances to reduce the deficit before Ebbsfleet secured a deserved 4-1 victory.

Academy manager Sean Noble reflected; “I could not have asked for more in terms of effort from the players who did not stop trying all game. Unfortunately the game was decided by which team made the most errors and we need to learn from results such as this and bounce back in a good fashion. I must mention strong performances from Delwin Duah, Finlay Holter, Calum Pollitt and Charlie Collings before he picked up and injury and had to be substituted.

Player of the match

Finlay Tarrant

A very assured display from a player who is improving week on week.

Eastbourne team

Holter(c), Collings, Mason, Duah, Tarrant, Prodger Simmons, Pollit, Karapetyan, Peterson, Martinaj.

Subs

Graves, Mcmanus, Copley

 

For information about the Football Academy at Bexhill College and our upcoming trials please visit https://www.bexhillcollege.ac.uk/docs2/news/EyZulFpVyyPiRYOkSK.shtml