Tom Olyott hit a hat-trick as Fulham’s under 18s finished their superb season in real style by winning 5-1 at Leicester City this afternoon.
Olyott’s trio of goals – the perfect way to round off an excellent individual campaign – were followed by strikes from Damon Park and Macauley Zepa as Ali Melloul’s side completed an impressive rout at Aylestone.
Seth Ridgeon almost scored within a minute for the second game in succession. The England under-16 international, who found the target within the first sixty seconds to get the young Whites off to a wonderful start against Reading at the weekend, saw his first effort blocked before firing a follow-up against the crossbar as the visitors began brightly.
In an open start to the contest, Foxes forward Toby Onanaye perhaps should have put the hosts ahead when he had space to try and pick out the bottom corner but his effort rolled agonisingly wide of goal.
Fulham went in front from their very next attack as Ridgeon’s cross broke kindly to Olyott, who hammered a delightful drive past Stevie Bausor in the Leicester goal. The winger took just two minutes to add to his account. There was a slight bit of fortune about his second as his wind-assisted corner, an inswinger from the right flank, completely wrong-footed the baffled Bausor and sailed into the net.
Leicester were far from shell-shocked by the concession of that goal as Logan Briggs came close to bringing the Foxes back into the game when he darted into a shooting position from the right flank and bent a brilliant curling effort only a matter of inches wide of Oscar Varney’s goal. The visitors finished the first half strongly and could have been three-up by the break but Brad de Jesus’ free-kick from just outside the area clattered to safety off the post.
The Foxes made a ferocious start to the second period and halved their arrears within three minutes of the restart. Briggs saw a speculative strike well saved by Varney, but the Fulham goalkeeper was powerless to prevent Kirtsen Otchere from converting the rebound from close range.
It took Melloul’s men merely three minutes to restore their two-goal advantage as Park plundered a second goal in as many matches when he converted a corner from Olyott. Olyott completed his hat-trick with twenty minutes to play by slotting home from three yards out after being picked out by a precise low ball from the overlapping de Jesus and substitute Zepa finished the rout with three minutes of normal time remaining when he burst away from a tiring Leicester defence down the right wing and showed commendable composure to beat Bausor with an assured finish.
LEICESTER CITY UNDER 18s (4-2-3-1): Bausor; Joseph, Ali, Khela, Gray (Dyke 45); Neale, Amartey (Donnelly 72); Briggs, Omobolaji, Ononaye; Otchere. Subs (not used): French, Aluko, Fisken.
BOOKED: Dyke.
GOAL: Otchere (48).
FULHAM UNDER 18s (4-3-3): Varney; de Jesus, Park (Evans 78), Tabares, Slade; Nwoko, Quashie, Ridgeon; Olyott, Ali Wahid (Zepa 64), Wingate (Cooke 78). Subs (not used): Kaiser.
BOOKED: Park, Ali Wahid.
GOALS: Olyott (8, 10, 70), Park (52), Zepa (87).
REFEREE: Thomas Bingley.
