Allan

Looks to be a better balance to the side with the line up we've put out, not sure about some of the players mind. Under a bit of pressure early on.

Quality episode. Cartman is outstanding.

That's my thinking too, surely he would be so far down the pecking order if he were to return? He's an honest player, but is short of the quality that other reserve and youth strikers have, Nemeth and Dalla Valle being the prime examples.

Part of the SAB Miller family.

Second leg is on Setanta Sports 1 on Friday, 19:30 - 22:00. Upcoming televised games.

If the lads finish the job Friday, they'll be playing Arsenal in the final. Link to FA.com match report Arsenal are through to The FA Youth Cup Final. Arsenal 4-1 Manchester City Watt 1, 31, Wilshere 20 (pen), Bartley 29 (6-2 on agg) Benali 45 The FA Youth Cup, sponsored by E.ON Semi-Final Second Leg Wednesday 22 April 2009 7pm, Emirates Stadium, Arsenal FC Arsenal will contest their first FA Youth Cup Final since 2001 after four goals in the opening half-hour dumped holders Manchester City out of the competition in front of almost 10,000 fans at the Emirates Stadium. The Gunners held a 2-1 lead from the first leg at Eastlands five weeks ago and, with Jack Wilshere in the middle of a trio of pacy attackers, they were a cut above again tonight. The fans were still filtering through the Emirates' turnstiles when the nerve-settling breakthrough came. Jay Emmanuel-Thomas wriggled himself a couple of yards in midfield and floated a pin-point pass into the path of Sanchez Watt, who calmly dispatched the ball beyond Joe Clegg after just 33 seconds. City were stunned, and it took until the seventh minute for them to begin to ask questions of the Arsenal backline. When they did, James Shea had to be at his best to claw Kieran Trippier's shot away at the near post. The men from Manchester battled gamely in search of a foothold and in Alex Nimley, they had an outstanding talent capable of changing a game. Sunu shot wide after a neat interchange with Craig Eastmond as the hosts continued to dominate. Short incisive passing in and around the box had the City defence in a muddle and when Thomas Cruise delivered the perfect cross it seemed Coquelin would score. He didn't, but the crowd didn't have to wait long. The same unease the visitors had showed in the first minute came back to haunt them as a breakdown in communication allowed for Watt to steal in and draw a foul inside the box from Clegg. Wilshere, the only player on the field with Premier League experience, made no mistake with the resulting spot-kick. The Gunners had found their groove. More intelligent build up led to the host's second corner, which in turn led to their third goal - Bartley heading home from Wilshere's delivery. And things got worse for City. Clegg and Reece Wabara conspired to gift Watt the ball from a goal kick and after riding one challenge the Arsenal man plundered a fourth. It had been a rip-roaring opening half an hour. Eastmond was at full-stretch to divert a goal-bound effort off the line as City ended the half in the ascendancy. Shea twice more made vital interventions but City were not to be shackled for long and Ahmad Benali swept home after a thrusting move to ensure the second half would, at the very least, be competitive. And they certainly turned up the heat after the restart. A succession of corners should have yielded at least one goal but substitute Jack Redshaw scuffed a shot wide from inside the six-yard box. Further blocks from Eastmond and Bartley continued to keep City at arm's length, while Sunu went close on the break. It was now a wonderfully open game, but the visitors looked the team most likely to trouble the scorers again. Abdisalam Ibrahim came within inches of sliding in a second for City, and the lively Redshaw continued to cause problems in the channels. For all City's endeavour, though, the game, and indeed their grip on The FA Youth Cup, had been lost in the first half. Liverpool host Birmingham in the other Semi-Final on Friday, but on this form neither will be looking forward to the prospect of facing Steve Bould's young charges. The Teams Arsenal James Shea, Craig Eastmond, Luke Ayling, Kyle Bartley, Thomas Cruise (Cedric Evina, 78 ), Sanchez Watt, Jack, Wilshere, Francis Coquelin, Emmanuel Frimpong, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas ©, Gilles Sunu (Benik Afobe 78 ) Substitutes not used Charlie Mann, Oguzhan Ozyakup, Luke Freeman Manchester City Joe Clegg, Greg Cunningham, Reece Wabara, Dedryck Boyata, Kieran Trippier ©, Abdisalam Ibrahim, Ahmad Benali, Chris Chantler (John Guidetti, 81), Andrew Tutte, Alex Nimely-Tchuimeni (Jack Redshaw, 45), Robbie Mak (Adrian Cieslewitz, 72) Substitutes not used Eirik Johansen, Omar Elabdellaoui

Team photo from the winning 1996 team. Small article about said final from the FA.com: In more than 50 years of competition Liverpool have only won The FA Youth Cup once - and they needed Michael Owen's help. On the way to the Final in 1996 they overcame Bradford City, Luton Town, Sheffield United, Manchester United and Crystal Palace and were never drawn away. A 7-5 aggregate win against Palace in the semis set up a two-legged clash with West Ham United, the club who had beaten the Reds in the Final more than 30 years earlier. The first leg of the '96 Final drew a crowd of 15,386 to Upton Park and a goal in each half, by Jon Newby and David Larmour, gave Liverpool a 2-0 win. Then the teams lined up like this for the second leg at Anfield, watched by more than 20,000: Liverpool: Naylor, Prior, Brazier, Carragher, Roberts, Quinn S., Quinn M., Thompson, Cassidy, Owen, Newby. West Ham: Finn, Moore, Coyne, McFarlane, Partridge, Keith, Ferdinand, Lampard, Boylan, Hodges, Omoyinmi. Owen, still 16, was brought in to help clinch The Cup for Liverpool and he did exactly that, scoring their first goal in a 2-1 victory on the night. Stuart Quinn netted the other and Frank Lampard was on target for the Hammers. What happened to young Frank? Well, within ten years he and Michael Owen had picked up 113 full England caps between them! Link to article Hopefully you'll have some more stuff regarding a Liverpool side winning the youth cup come the end of this season too.

I take it you've had a look through the academy page(s) on the offal, if not, here's a link, LFC Academy. Found a few pictures with reference to the past youth cup wins; Got the following stats from Wiki regarding the youth team honours: Youth Team League Champions * Premier Academy League U19: 1 o 2001-02[4] * Premier Academy League U17: 1 o 2001-02[4] * Lancashire League Division One: 6 [5] o 1965-66, 1967-68, 1968-69, 1971-72, 1977-78, 1982-83 * Lancashire League Division Two: 7 [6] o 1961-62, 1965-66, 1967-68, 1972-73, 1975-76, 1976-77, 1992-93 * Lancashire League Division Three: 1 [7] o 1960-61 Cup Winners * FA Youth Cup: 3 o 1996, 2006, 2007 * Liverpool Youth Cup: 3 [8] o 1954, 1956, 1958 * Lancashire Division One League Cup: 3 [9] o 1960, 1966, 1967 * Lancashire Division Two League Cup: 5 [10] o 1962, 1966, 1967, 1973, 1980 * Lancashire Division Three League Cup: 1 [11] o 1961 Hope this helps a little.

Just watched the game on LFC TV, and what a game it was, especially the second half. The game was played at such a high tempo by both sides throughout I'm not surprised that the majority of the goals came from mistakes, the players hardly had time to think, and when they did try to slow the game down, they got punished. Let's just hope Arsenal take that attitude into their league game against United, because they'll beat United if they play at that tempo and press the ball as they did against us tonight. Fingers crossed that Crouch, James & Pennant are on top form for Pompey tomorrow/tonight.

Flash stream would be appreciated. In work and they've locked down my usual sources, MyP2P and Iraq Goals.

Xabi will handle Fabregas again, little Cesc is no match for the bearded one.

Strange stat, but Spearing has become the ressies top goalscorer in the league this season with his hat-trick tonight. There are a few players stuck on 2 goals for the season so far. Shows that we are in dire need of a goalscorer at this level, or at least Nemeth to find his form from last season.

Can only find a reference to Thomas Eckersley via Google, not Nathan.

Cheers for the update. The link you provided was the same as the one NIred1 PM'd me, doesn't work for me in work unfortunately, thanks anyway.

What's the performance been like so far?

Without being able to see, I'd say Makukula.

He's not looked the same player since he's returned from injury, early days I know, but he just doesn't look right to me.

You should be able to convert word docs to PDF using Word and Adobe Acrobat. Save your word doc as HTML, open said HTML doc in Adobe Acrobat and then save as PDF. This won't work if you only have Adobe Reader, you need Acrobat to save as PDF.

My usual LFCTV streaming sources are not working this evening, and haven't been for a week or so. Don't these people realise some of us depend on their links?

Unless he's picked up an injury in the past week, then yes he should've been. EDIT: Just looked, and Huth was last selected for the ressies for the Liverpool Senior Cup semi on the the 24th March, so I suspect he's got a knock.

Anyone have a working stream for this game? In work, so no access to my E-Season ticket or LFC TV channel.

I'd also imagine that as Godwin and San Jose are the only centre halves available to the ressies tonight, that may have an affect on selection. Ayala, Kennedy and Wisdom have the youth cup semi on Friday. Kelly is now out on loan as well which limits choices even further.

Looking at that line up, I'd expect Pacheco to start on the right hand side of midfield, a position he's played quite a bit recently for the ressies.

So poor it's great.

Good God, awful game, awful penalties so far....