Rice impressive in bid for League Cup spot

Chelsea U23s 0 Irons U23s 0

The Irons youngsters – with Declan Rice and Sead Haksabanovic playing leading roles- earned a valuable point in a game of few chances.

Academy boss Terry Westley had called on the squad to impress after the disappointment of Friday evening – in a bid to land places in the first team for the League Cup clash against Spurs this week.

Rice could not have done more to impress although manager Slaven Bilic was not at the game whilst Haksabanovic showed great skill and had one tremendous volley brilliantly saved.

Nathan Holland showed great determination down the left although Toni Martinez was not really prominent after his recent goal scoring exploits.

The Hammers were always dominant, starting and finishing with tremendous enthusiasm and the home side were hard pushed to withstand the waves of attacks that came their way.

And when the young Blues did get forward Rice made a couple of outstanding blocks to ensure that keeper Nathan Trott remained pretty well untroubled apart from one shot which was palmed over.

Second half sub for the Irons, Dan Kemp, also saw a shot finger-tipped over after a great run and pass inside and he was also denied a clear penalty when he was clearly brought down inside the box but the referee’s official remained unmoved despite having a clear view of the incident from no more than 10 yards away.