Our under-18s came from behind to win 3-1 at home to Norwich City on Saturday afternoon.

Damari Daley opened the scoring for the Canaries, but Dan Casey pulled one back before Max Dowman’s second-half brace of penalties.

WHAT HAPPENED

Dowman looked dangerous straight away, receiving the ball on the right hand side and gliding past two players, who scrambled to bring him down on the edge of the area.

He drove into the box again in the 14th minute and his left footed effort was parried wide for a corner, before Louis Zecevic-John had a great chance to score after being played in behind by Dowman.

Going one-on-one with Henry Bullen, Zecevic-John struck over the bar and we were quickly punished at the other end, as a cross was played into the six-yard box where Daley got to the ball ahead of Khari Ranson to place it into the back of the net.

In response, we had a couple of penalty appeals that the referee wasn’t interested in, before Casey linked up with Zecevic-John and opened his body up to slot the ball into the bottom right corner to equalise.

Samuel Onyekachukwu made a crucial block to deny Daley from getting his second and Dowman laid the ball of to Ife Ibrahim, who sliced wide as we went into the half-time break level.

It didn’t take long for us to go ahead in the second half as Dowman was brought down in the penalty area in the 49th minute. He stepped up to take the spot-kick, sending the goalkeeper the wrong way and shooting into the bottom right corner.

Maalik Hashi clipped the post as we looked to increase our lead, while Ranson made a top save to stop Daley again after he’d shrugged off Sam Chapman.

We cleared the danger after Norwich hit the crossbar in the 65th minute and our lead became more comfortable with 15 minutes to go when substitute Ceadach O’Neill did well to beat his man and find Zecevic-John, who was fouled by Oser Okpiabhele.

Dowman made no mistake from the spot again, scoring his sixth goal in the last three matches.

The away side hit the woodwork again late on, Vatan Oğuz Ozcan heading onto the crossbar in the 94th minute, but we held on for all three points.

WHAT IT MEANS

We’re fifth in the U18 Premier League South with 34 points from 19 matches, four points off of leaders Chelsea and with two games in hand.

WHAT’S NEXT

We travel to Crystal Palace for an 11am kick-off on Thursday, the Eagles second in the division and three points ahead of us, having played three games more.

LINE-UPS

Arsenal XI: Ranson, Murisa, Chapman, Onyekachukwu, Ogunnaike, Hashi (Thompson 83), Ibrahim, Bailey-Joseph (Marciniak 83), Dowman, Casey (O’Neill 67), Zecevic-John.

Substitutes (not used): Talbot, Ismail.

Norwich City XI: Bullen, Oligbo, Keita, Okpiabhele, Williams, Domeracki, Ofori-Manteaw (Madu 77), Valencia Gomez (Poll 89), Ozcan, Daley, Owen (Smith-Roach 77).

Substitutes (not used): Binnie.

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