Under-21s Exit Vertu Trophy At Bradford

Everton Under-21s were knocked out of the Vertu Trophy after a 5-1 defeat against Bradford City.

The Blues had Dwight McNeil, Nathan Patterson and Adam Aznou in their starting line-up but they were no match for a strong home side impressing in League One this season.

The match was effectively over as a contest in the opening quarter when Bradford scored three times.

On seven minutes, Stephen Humphrys shot for goal and when the ball was deflected to the feet of Calum Kavanagh, he found the back of the net.

The second came after 15 minutes when the ball fell to Humphrys he lashed it goalwards, where it went in off the unfortunate Patterson. Humphrys then made it three when he drilled a low shot past George Pickford.

Former Everton midfielder Jenson Metcalfe almost netted a dream goal just after the half-hour mark when he struck the ball beautifully from 25 yards and it was not far off target.

Bradford really put the game beyond Everton’s reach just before half-time when George Lasplie steered the ball past Pickford from close-range to make it 4-0.

A dreadful evening for Everton got worse on the hour when Joel Catesby suffered a leg injury that required 10 minutes of treatment from the medical staff of both clubs before he was taken off the pitch on a stretcher.

Justin Clarke came off the bench to replace Catesby and it was from his centre that Joe Wright inadvertently turned the ball into his own net for the Everton goal.

The Blues certainly made a better fist of things after the break, albeit without creating many goalscoring opportunities, but by then the game was up.

Bantams substitute Alex Pattison bundled home his side’s fifth goal before the end after Pickford had done well to save from Humphrys.

The margin of defeat could have been even worse in added time, of which there were 13 minutes owing largely to Catesby’s injury, had Pickford not made two excellent saves to thwart Tyreik Wright and Pattison.

Speaking after the game, Head Coach Paul Tait said: "[Joel's injury] was the worst bit of tonight. He’s gone to hospital and we’ll know a bit more later. 

"It can happen – their lad has been to see me to apologise and assure us there was no malice.

"We were up against a good side, but we gifted them four goals in the first half, trying to play in areas where we shouldn’t have played. We’d talked about it and we’d worked on it to try play forward, get an early foothold in the game and not concede…and we did the opposite. Then we continued to do it and not learn our lesson.

"We usually stay in games but Bradford are a good team with good players and we got punished. It’s a very harsh lesson and they’ll have to learn from it.

"The one positive that we can take is that we showed some spirit in the second half, but again we’ve given a poor goal away."