Everton under-18 grab late draw to keep in title touch

Antony Evans scores free-kick in injury-time against Manchester United

Everton under-18s stayed in touch with the leaders in the Premier League table after a last-gasp draw against Manchester United.

Substitute Antony Evans scored an injury-time free-kick to cancel out Jordan Thompson’s opener for United and keeps the young Blues three points behind Middlesbrough with a game in hand.

The u-18s, managed by Kevin Sheedy, had a plethora of chances but could not make the breakthrough.

Nathan Broadhead, Nathan Holland and Harry Charsley all went close before James Graham and then Jordan Thorniley hit the woodwork.



Everton could be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t their day when Thompson struck but Evans came off the bench to secure a deserved point.

“I thought it was an excellent performance by our lads today,” said Sheedy.

“We dominated the game for about 75 minutes, up until they scored.

“We huffed and puffed a little bit in front of goal, so that was the biggest disappointment for all our domination - we didn’t score when we were on top.

“But that’s how football is; they have one break away and score.

“But again the lads showed great resilience and determination to keep on going right to the end and we got the equaliser in the last minute with a tremendous free-kick from Antony Evans.

“Antony puts a lot of work in after training, he practices free-kicks all the time and none of the staff were surprised when it went in the top corner, because he’s been doing that.

“So that’s a good lesson to the other players that if you practice really hard, you get the benefits. It was a really nice moment for Antony and a great equaliser for us.”


By Phil Kirkbride / Echo