West Ham United U19s produced a sensational performance to defeat Tottenham Hotspur 8-0 and win the Premier League Next Generation Cup London on Saturday.
Callum Marshall, whose hat-trick helped the Hammers storm back from 3-0 down to beat Crystal Palace in the semi-finals on Wednesday, went one better by scoring four times at Spurs Academy.
Four goals either side of the interval saw the Hammers run riot at the Tottenham Hotspur Academy on Saturday.
Marshall wasn’t the only Hammer to come away with a match ball though, with Gideon Kodua netting a hat trick, as Remy Coddington also netted in a breath taking display.
The young Hammers flew out of the blocks and almost took the lead in the fourth minute. Patrick Kelly slid the ball wide to Marshall who fired the ball back towards Coddington. The winger’s goal-bound strike was well blocked and looped behind for corner.
Oliver Scarles’ stepped up to take the resulting corner and his in-swinger located Kodua who headed home from close range to give his side the perfect start.
Kodua almost had his, and West Ham’s second, just a few minutes later. The Irons were causing Spurs a number of problems with their press and the young striker pounced onto a defensive error. Kodua set the ball out of his feet and attempted to lob the Tottenham goalkeeper from 30 yards. Despite successfully beating the keeper, Kodua was desperately unlucky to see his effort crash off of the crossbar.
Phillips’ side doubled their lead on 17 minutes. Favour Fawunmi delivered an inch perfect ball to find Marshall, who controlled the bouncing ball with his chest before calmly passing the ball into the bottom right corner.
The Tottenham back line was breached again before the 20 minute mark, with the Hammers once again showed their quality from set pieces. This time it was Asher Falase standing over the ball and his deep cross was met by Kaelan Casey. The powerful centre half nodded the ball back across goal, and Kodua flicked the ball into the net to secure his brace.
Despite a comfortable lead, the young side were hungry for more and scored a superbly worked fourth goal on 40 minutes. Scarles played a pin point through ball to Coddington and the Bermudan winger unselfishly squared the ball to Marshall who swept the ball into the corner of the goal.
Tottenham registered their first big chance of the match just before the interval, but Mason Terry was out sharply to save, having been relatively unworked throughout the first half.
West Ham continued to play some fantastic football, and took a five goal lead just after the break. After some well worked play to break the Tottenham press, Ryan Battrum found space on the edge of the Tottenham 18-yard box. The midfielders deep cross fell to Marshall, who in turn volleyed the ball across the goal to Kodua who tapped the ball into the net for his hat trick.
Coddington was on the act just moments later as he raced onto a through pass. The Tottenham defence recovered well, but an unfortunate clearance struck the West Ham winger and the ball looped up and over the stranded Tottenham No1.
Marshall secured his second hat trick in as many games in the 69th minute. Kelly powerfully drove forwards from the midfield before threading a ball through to his Northern Irish counterpart, who took a couple of touches before hitting the ball across the goalkeeper and into the bottom right corner.
The Irons continued to push for an eighth goal and in the closing stages, Marshall had his fourth, and West Ham’s eighth.
Once again, it was a brilliant team goal, with some superb passing to beat the Tottenham press. Marshall once again found space in behind and smashed the ball into the bottom right corner after a superb pass from Kodua. The goal wrapped up a superb West Ham display, worthy of winning any final.
