Bristol City\u2019s Under-21s opened their Premier League Cup campaign with a 4-0 win over Reading at the Robins High Performance Centre.<\/p>\n
Ephraim Yeboah opened the scoring in the 37th minute to give the Young Robins the lead at the break, before the visitors were reduced to ten men seven minutes after the restart.<\/p>\n
Second-half strikes from Luke Skinner, Rhys Knight and Billy O\u2019Neill followed as City\u2019s Under-21s secured a comprehensive victory in their first competitive game of the season under new head coach Louis Carey.<\/p>\n
The Young Robins return to action next Tuesday as they kick off their Professional Development League campaign at home to Wigan Athletic.<\/p>\n
After an end-to-end start, the first opportunity of the game fell to Ruebin Sheppard. The City captain\u2019s powerful effort from the edge of the box was tipped over the bar by Reading goalkeeper Toby Borgnis, before Excellent Ikpeama saw a low right-footed shot flash narrowly wide of the far post seven minutes later.<\/p>\n
The visitors had the ball in the back of the net in the 24th minute, but only after the whistle had blown for a foul against goalscorer Torin Ntege.<\/p>\n
The Young Robins twice came close after a dangerous delivery from Skinner, as Yeboah and Adam Murphy both saw shots blocked by the Reading backline.<\/p>\n
But the opening goal followed five minutes later, as a well-executed counter attack was finished off by Yeboah after a low driven cross from Skinner.<\/p>\n
Reading\u2019s Sam Harrison tested Jack Witchard in the final moments of the half, but City\u2019s goalkeeper did well to get down low to deny him and maintain the lead at the break.<\/p>\n
The shot-stopper was called into action again four minutes after the restart, as he made two crucial stops to keep out efforts from Ntege and Matteo Dashi.<\/p>\n
The visitors saw midfielder Tyler Sackey sent off in the 52nd minute after receiving his second yellow card, which allowed the Young Robins to regain control of the game.<\/p>\n
A left-footed effort from Skinner followed, which Borgnis turned over the bar, before the striker found the net in the 56th minute with a well-placed finish into the bottom-left corner.<\/p>\n
Reading looked to answer back soon after, as George Booth pounced on a loose ball and attempted a lob, but he was unable to connect cleanly with it, and his effort sailed high and wide.<\/p>\n
Substitute Knight was the next on the scoresheet, as he powered a long-range strike past Borgnis in the 81st minute, before O\u2019Neill added a fourth in the first minute of added time with another stunning shot from distance.<\/p>\n
Starting XI: Witchard, Thelwell, Anderson (Sainsbury, 68\u2019), J. Murphy, Gibbs (Williams, 45\u2019), A. Murphy (Knight, 68\u2019), Skinner, Sheppard, Yeboah (O\u2019Neill, 40\u2019), Griffin-Pacheco, Ikpeama (Thomas, 68\u2019)<\/p>\n
Subs: Dali-Kemmery, Akinbo<\/p>\n
Report by George Townsend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol City\u2019s Under-21s opened their Premier League Cup campaign with a 4-0 win over Reading at the Robins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111618,111619,128,130,129,111620],"class_list":["post-264314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-bristol-city-u21","tag-premier-league-cup","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-u21"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}