Fleetwood Town Under-21s picked up all three points on the road as they beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 at Middlewood Road in their latest Professional Development League fixture this afternoon.
It was an even start to the game between the two sides and that meant most of the action was in the midfield in the opening stages, so the players and coaches had to wait until the 19th minute for the first chance when Sam Reed had the ball in the Fleetwood net, but he was flagged offside in the build-up.
Town were in the ascendency after this as Will Johnson drove forwards from full-back and fired over the bar from range before Liam Roberts broke the deadlock a couple of minutes later as he latched onto the end of Ryan Graydon’s dangerous cross from the right to tap home from inside the area.
Just before the break, Matt Lawlor’s men had a chance to double their lead through forward Jayden Stockley as he rose to head towards goal from close range, but some good defending from Guilherme Siqueira for the Owls saw him get across and block the effort before it crossed the line.
After half-time, the home side made a change to the back line and that seemed to spring them forward as they forced a few early breaks in the second period. This led to Reed being inside the Fleetwood box, who Connor Teale brought down, and Luke Cook stepped up to score from the spot to level up the score.
The battles carried on throughout the afternoon, with goalkeeper Tom Donaghy having to make a save late on in the game from Buchan’s effort before defender Harrison Holgate headed on to the crossbar for the young Cods from a corner soon after, but it was last-minute bliss for Town as they found the winner with not long to go.
Pharrell Brown broke through the Sheffield backline and forced a good save from the goalkeeper Jack Hall, but he could only push the ball into a dangerous area where Kyle White was waiting, and he volleyed the rebound on target and made the game 2-1 in the 89th minute.
The young Cods will be living on cloud nine after that late goal, picking up all three points, and will want to take this momentum into their next fixture, which is set to be against Hull City at Poolfoot Farm on Tuesday 21 November.
Owls XI: Hall (GK), Siqueira, Ihiekwe (Thornton 46’), Adetoro, Flannery, Reed, Shipston, Buchan, Onukwuli, Phuthi, Cook.
Unused subs: Phillips, Fernandes, Emery, Johnson.
Town XI: Donaghy (GK), Johnson (C), Armstrong, Fletcher (Smith 72’), Teale, Holgate, Graydon, White, Stockley (Fishburn 64’), Brown, Roberts.
Unused subs: Cragg (GK), Butterworth, Hughes.