Cricky’s hat trick moves youths up three places
Our under-18s travelled to Birmingham two days ago having dropped to eighth place in the U18 Professional Development League although with games in hand on most other teams in the northern group.
We’d won our previous away game 3-0 at Wigan and matched that result with a terrific 4-1 victory that saw a second hat trick of the season. Leading goalscorer Mitch George had claimed three of the four goals in the Lancashire Youth Cup win against Oldham but captain Cricky Conn-Clarke (pictured) scored the first three in this latest win with George getting the fourth, the first league hat trick for us at this level since Lewis Richardson’s astonishing five goal haul in November last year against Crewe when Conn-Clarke scored the other in a 6-1 win.
We kicked off a point behind both Crewe and Hull with Sheffield Wednesday one further point ahead of us. Wednesday could only draw against Leeds and with both Crewe and Hull losing, against Barnsley and Wigan, it has given us a three place rise in the table to fifth and a real opportunity to push closer to those four teams directly above us.
The other team above us, leaders Wigan, are some way clear of the field although they have played more games than any of the other higher placed teams. They score and concede goals regularly. We kept them out in that win recently but this week they kept a rare clean sheet in their win against Hull which added another three to the goals for column which has now reached 31 in 11 games.
Their lead over second place Barnsley is six points although the Tykes do have two games in hand but it is a league where some teams, us and third place Sheffield United, have only played eight games while all the others have figured nine, ten or, in Wigan’s case, eleven times.
South group leaders Watford slipped up, losing 3-2 against Bristol City who have now moved within two points of them. Charlton are second and they missed the opportunity to go top when they could only draw against Ipswich. It’s really close there but there will be little change this week with only one game scheduled and that does feature leaders Watford who could go points clear again.
Bolton, who were without a game, remain bottom of the north group. They are only a point behind leads but in the south, QPR have now fallen five points behind next to bottom Coventry. Colchester beat Coventry to move ahead of them on goal difference but QPR suffered a big 5-0 home defeat against Crystal Palace and like Leeds and Bolton in the north have won just once all season.
There might just be one south group game this weekend but it’s a full fixture list in the north with the bottom two playing each other. We are at home against Hull and a win would hopefully start to close that gap on the teams directly above us.
The League Tables are updated as results are confirmed and can be found with our Fixtures and Results within U23/U18 Stats on the top menu.
Last week’s results, this week’s fixtures, our goal scorers and the current tables are all below.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS
Saturday 19th October
Barnsley 1 Crewe 0
Birmingham 1 Burnley 4
Nottingham Forest 2 Sheffield United 3
Sheffield Wednesday 0 Leeds 0
Wigan 3 Hull 0
Bristol City 3 Watford 2
Charlton 3 Ipswich 3
Colchester 3 Coventry 1
Millwall 3 Cardiff 0
QPR 0 Crystal Palace 5
THIS WEEK’S FIXTURES
Saturday 26th October
Barnsley v Sheffield United
Birmingham v Nottingham Forest
Bolton v Leeds
Burnley v Hull
Wigan v Sheffield Wednesday
Watford v Cardiff
BURNLEY’S GOALSCORERS (League & Cups)
8: Mitch George
4: Cricky Conn-Clarke
1: Rhys Fenlon, Jayden Major, Joe McGlynn, Michael Mellon, Ben Woods
CURRENT LEAGUE TABLES
| Team | pld | w | d | l | f | a | pts |
| Wigan | 11 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 31 | 18 | 23 |
| Barnsley | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 8 | 17 |
| Sheffield United | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 18 | 11 | 16 |
| Nottingham Forest | 10 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 14 | 12 | 16 |
| Burnley | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 12 | 13 |
| Sheffield Wednesday | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 12 | 9 | 12 |
| Crewe Alexandra | 10 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 17 | 20 | 12 |
| Hull City | 11 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 13 | 22 | 11 |
| Birmingham City | 9 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 13 | 25 | 7 |
| Leeds | 10 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 21 | 6 |
| Bolton Wanderers | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 13 | 26 | 5 |
| Team | pld | w | d | l | f | a | pts |
| Watford | 10 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 25 | 13 | 22 |
| Charlton Athletic | 10 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 23 | 11 | 22 |
| Bristol City | 10 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 22 | 10 | 20 |
| Millwall | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 24 | 10 | 19 |
| Ipswich Town | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 22 | 13 | 18 |
| Crystal Palace | 10 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 24 | 13 | 15 |
| Cardiff City | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 13 | 17 | 9 |
| Colchester United | 11 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 21 | 34 | 9 |
| Coventry City | 10 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 11 | 28 | 9 |
| Queens Park Rangers | 10 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 12 | 32 | 4 |
Share this page :