Manager James Oliver-Pearce has guided our Under-18s to top spot in the EFL Youth Alliance South East after another convincing win, but he believes there’s much more to come from his side.
Quaine Bartley (pictured) led the charge to victory with a double in a 6-1 victory versus Milton Keynes last weekend with Under-16 Archie Stevens and Leon Chiwome also on target. Two own goals were also scored by the visitors after fine crosses by Josh Hallard.
It meant that the young Dons, who host Woking in the first round of the FA Youth Cup early next month, reclaimed top spot.
“To score six goals is excellent, and it puts us back to the top of the league,” said James. “We’ve now scored 24 goals in six games, which is impressive, but we just know that there’s a lot more to come from this group and as individuals too.
“After an excellent start on Saturday our standards definitely dropped off in the second part of the first-half. They got back to 2-1, but we scored really late on in the first-half to make it 3-1, which probably settled us down a little bit, and meant that they had to come out and be different with us.
“In the second-half I felt that our forwards thought that there wasn’t a lot of threat in attack from the opposition, and they waited for us to win the ball so that they could effect the game going forward. We are better than that, we can be much more dynamic to get around the ball, and our standards have been far more consistent than that.”
Click on the links below to watch highlights from the 6-1 win, and the full interview with James.