Nottingham Forest demolished Wigan Athletic last night to ease in to the 5th Round of The FA Youth Cup.
Under the City Ground floodlights Forest’s youngsters went to town, firing 9 goals past their Premier League opponents in a 9-1 win.
Patrick Bamford led the rout with a man-of-the-match display that included five goals and three assists.
The tone for what was to follow was set after just 5 minutes with Bamford converting from the spot after Ben Osborn had been fouled. Kieran Wallace added a second five minutes later and while Wigan got back in to the game after an own-goal by centre-back Kieron Fenton, the visitors offered very little in response to a dominant Reds display.
Bamford added a third on 32 minutes to restore the 2 goal margin and send the home side in 3-1 up at the break.
Any hopes the visitors had of getting something from the game evaporated after just 20 seconds into the second half as Bamford stole in for his hat-trick and Forest’s fourth goal after a long ball caught out the Wigan back-line.
Bamford then turned from poacher to provider to set up Ben Osborn and Jack Blake for goals 5 and 6 on 51 and 55 minutes.
He was back amongst the goals though on 71 minutes, pulling down a pass from David Morgan before dispatching the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal. Osborn then made it 8 but the final word went to Bamford who struck late on as Forest claimed their ninth of the evening, turning the ball home neatly at the near post.
Forest will now face Southampton in the 5th Round of the competition while Wigan’s young players will try to recover from a result that mirrored their own first team’s failure at Tottenham little over 2 years ago.
