Alan Hansen’s second career as a TV pundit is, surely, best remembered for something he said early on in it about Manchester United after they were beaten by Aston Villa on the opening day of the season. The Manchester side featured quite a few of the “class of 92” who were still teenagers or in their very early twenties and Hansen opined on that night’s Match of the Day that you “win nothing with kids”.
Of course, Manchester United went on to win the title that year with a team which regularly featured the likes of Gary Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and David Beckham to go along Ryan Giggs and Lee Sharpe who weren’t much older.
Hansen was clearly wrong, but you could see where he was coming from and tonight City’s team of mostly kids came a fairly distant second to an AFC Wimbledon side that had too much experience, power, know how and finishing ability for them as they eased to a 5-1 win in the EFL Cup round of 32 at Cardiff City Stadium.
People were, rightly, excited by a much less experienced City team’s 3-1 victory over Arsenal’s under 21s last month, but, apart from the first twenty minutes or so, it always felt like Wimbledon, who fielded what I’m fairly sure was their first choice back three and wing backs, were in control.
The disappointing aspect of the night for me was that with Matt Turner, Dylan Lawlor, Gabriel Osho, Joel Colwill, Cian Ashford. Omari Kellyman and Tanatswa Nyakuhwa all starting, City had a nucleus of players who have played a fair amount of first team football this season and yet none of them made a significant impression on the game – indeed some of them were downright poor (the younger, less experienced players were hardly going to prosper under such circumstances).
Not all of the players I named struggled – it was typical of Osho’s luck since joining us that he picked up an injury which forced him off at half time when the score was 1-0 and Ashford looked good on the too rare occasions he was involved in the game, but the rest will have been disappointed with their showings, although Lawlor did give us a reminder of what all the fuss is about with a thrilling run past four opponents before seeing his shot saved by the keeper.
Lawlor was beaten by the very impressive Aron Sasu for the first of his four goals as he went on to beat Turner on his near post on what was not a good night for our second choice keeper. Nyakuhwa had one of those games where nothing he tried came off, Colwill, who was captain for the night, looked lightweight and lacking in pace in a way he never has in his league appearances and Kellyman had some nice touches, but, as happens too often with him, he made no significant impact on proceedings.
Of the others, I thought Luey Giles did okay and our youngest ever player, Axel Donczew built on his decent showing on his debut against Newport with a nice bit of skill soon after coming on which gave him the chance to get away a shot that was, somewhat fortuitously, turned on to the crossbar by keeper McDonnell.
There was one debutante for City, Noah Williams came on in place of Osho and had a difficult first few minutes as the visitors scored three times in five minutes. City lost the ball cheaply on Williams’ side in the build up to Sasu’s second goal although there were others more culpable than him and he was unlucky when a corner skidded off his head into the path of Omar Bugiel who headed in the third at the far post. A crisp finish by Sasu made it four and gave him his hat trick shortly afterwards, but Williams settled after that and did some good things as the half wore on.
Sasu’s fourth came from a near post header from a deflected cross which Turner should have saved, but at least City got on the scoresheet late on when Giles’ free kick from twenty five yards found the net via a deflection.
City’s youth ranks were stretched by the fact that the under 21s also had a game this lunchtime at Barnsley from which they emerged with a creditable 1-1 draw, no details yet as to who scored for us.
Before the under 21s’ 1 pm kick off, the Welsh Women’s team had already won their first game in game of 2025, thereby ending a run of twelve without a victory. Sophie Ingle, Heather Cain and Lily Woodham got the goals to overcome a Switzerland side ranked eight places higher than them in the world rankings 3-2. It was back to the walls stuff in the last half an hour as Wales seemed to run out of steam after being worth the 3-1 lead they held very early in the second half and, by the end, the Swiss had a right to feel that they had done enough to at least earn a draw.