Saints Lose Semi Final On Penalties

Southampton Youth have been knocked out of the FA Youth Cup in heartbreaking fashion, in their semi-final clash with Liverpool.

The Saints team were aiming to make it to there second final in a row but went into last night’s home tie trailing 2-1 from the first leg at Anfield.

To make matters worse after only the third minute Liverpool scored; Saints were now 3-1 down on aggregate. Saints weren’t beaten though and an encouraging fight back followed and the nine thousand strong St Mary’s crowd witnessed a pulsating match on a freezing night.

Saints piled the pressure on and David McGoldrick finally made the breakthrough on 61 minutes, scoring his 35th goal of the season.

After that the home side continued to search for the goal that would force extra time. It eventually came by way of an injury time own goal; Lloyd James crossed the ball in and the visitors defence failed to clear, Liverpool defender Jack Hobbs eventually turning past his own keeper to send the match into extra time.

It looked like the tide had turned in favour of Georges Prost’s team and they capitalised on that momentum when McGoldrick scored again on 99 minutes.

Liverpool were also determined not to lose the tie and showed character to fight back and equalise shortly after; the match was now 4-4 on aggregate.

From then on both sets of players looked tired and the game headed to the lottery of penalties.

Last season Saints experienced victory in a semi final shoot out against Wolves; this season they learnt another lesson, as they lost the shoot out in sudden death when Cedric Baseya saw his kick saved after Liverpool had scored.

It was heartbreaking for the Saints team but despite the loss the cup run has again proved its an exciting time for the Saints Youth and the football they play really has the Saints fans proud of our youth development and very hopeful for the future.