Exeter City beat Southampton

Exeter City's first game without manager Matt Taylor

In their second match of the Papa John’s trophy, Exeter City needed a win to have the possibility of progressing from the group stages.

A draw against Southampton would mean relying on other results to get through. 

This match came on the day it was confirmed that manager Matt Taylor has left to take charge of Rotherham United. Assistant manager Wayne Carlisle is also moving to the Yorkshire side.

The team is now under the interim leadership of under-18s' coach Kevin Nicholson and personal development coach Jon Hill.

Before the game, club president Julian Tagg said: “At the moment [a new manager] is a very open book and it’s not something we will do internally”.

The game started with energy from both sides. Southampton had a lot of the ball initially, but they couldn’t find a finishing product in the final third.

Exeter didn’t take their chances in the first 15 minutes and were punished for not doing so as Southampton U21s' forward Dom Ballard scored a perfectly timed low driven shot past Exeter City goalkeeper, Jamal Blackman.

Exeter had five corners in the first half an hour, but nothing came from them.

Jay Stansfield had a chance to score his first goal for City, but his powerful shot from inside the box was denied by the Southampton goalkeeper.

Exeter's dominance was shown as captain Matt Jay gave his side a well-deserved equaliser.

Just before half-time, a great free kick by Jay hit the post, followed by Kegs Chauke scoring against his former club, and brining the half-time score to Exeter 2 Southampton U21s 1.

Exeter started the second half with high tempo, with back-to-back chances. But they couldn’t quite get a goal.

A long break in play left the Exeter City fans worried as goalkeeper Jamal Blackman was down injured, unable to be subbed as City had used up all their substitutes.

Late on, Exeter's Josh Key was lucky not to be sent off after a challenge resulting in only a yellow card. Southampton's subsequent free kick hit the crossbar; their biggest chance of the second half coming to nothing.

Final score: Exeter City 2 Southampton U21s 1

Lineups:
Exeter City: Blackman, King, Sweeney (Key), James, Hartridge (Billington), Sparkes (Caprice), Chauke, Harper (Borges), Jay (C), Stansfield, Cox (Brown)
Southampton Under 21s: Hall, Payne (C), Lancashire (Lett), Lawrence, Otseh-Taiwo (Boot), Turner, Bragg, Amo-Ameyaw (Dibling), Bellis, Morgan (Pearce), Ballard (Merry)