Swansea City Under-18s Chelsea Premier League

Swansea City Under-18s went down 5-0 away to a dominant Chelsea side in Premier League South on Saturday.

The young Swans defended well in the opening ten minutes of the game but the home side broke the deadlock soon after through midfielder Mukhtar Ali.

The scholars responded well and immediately looked to get back on level terms, but midfielder Tom Dyson saw his shot blocked minutes later. 

Defender Conor Quigley also could have levelled, though his two chances were saved by Jared Thompson in the Chelsea goal before an Aaron Lewis drive hit the post.

Swans keeper Lewis Thomas stood up to the Chelsea attack to keep out a number of chances but could not stop the Blues from finding the back of the net twice more before the break.

Chelsea added two more after the restart to record a comfortable home win.
Despite the result, coach Eric Ramsay described the defeat as a valuable learning experience for the scholars.

"Chelsea are an exceptional academy side," he said. "They were ruthless with their finishing and we struggled to get to grips with their attack at times.

"Category one is a very steep learning curve but we are here to learn from games like this.

"We can take heart that we had good spells during the game and probably deserved a goal with the chances we had through Conor (Quigley), Tom (Dyson) and Aaron (Lewis).

"We can focus on individual targets today as we will continue to develop as a squad going forward."

SWANS U18s: Lewis Thomas (capt), Mael Davies, Brandon Cooper, Conor Quigley (Jordan Jones, 65), Joe Lewis (Causso Darame, 73), Jack Evans, Tom Dyson, Jack Watts, Aaron Lewis, Keiran Evans, Liam Edwards (Brandon Griffiths, 56)

SUBS NOT USED: Alex Lang, Ben Jones