Under-21s head coach Mehmet Ali sat down with Arsenal.com this week to look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League 2 play-off quarter-final against Chelsea and reflect on the season as a whole.
We go into the weekend’s game at Meadow Park off the back of a resounding 6-2 win at home to Manchester United in the round of 16.
Mehmet is expecting a tough test from Chelsea though, who finished fourth in the league prior to the play-offs taking place this season, level on points with us but with a better goal difference.
“We’re expecting a tough game,” he said “We’ve obviously done a lot of work on them throughout the week. They’re a good side, they’ve recruited quite a few front half players that will cause any team some problems, but we’re ready for it.
“We’re looking forward to it and it’s really a good opportunity for our lads to see where we’ve been throughout the season and see if we can improve and get a win against them in a play-off game. I’m looking forward to it but it will be a tough challenge.”
Last time we met the Blues was away from home at the beginning of March when goals from Taylor Foran, James Sweet, Ethan Nwaneri and Nathan Butler-Oyedeji saw us claim a 4-2 win.
“It was a really exciting game, I think it was two top academies going toe-to-toe,” Mehmet recalled. “It was really entertaining, it was a bit like basketball so for a neutral there was loads going on in it.
“We came out on top on the night away from home. We missed a penalty, they went 1-0 up and then credit to our lads, that’s what we’ve got in our group. We just keep going and going and in the second half we carried on, pushed hard and they ran out of steam a little bit so it was a really good game and again I’m looking forward to playing them to see if we can beat them again.”
Reflecting on our Premier League 2 campaign as a whole, Mehmet has been pleased with the progress that a particularly young group has made this season.
“It’s important to always remember what your role is as an under-21s head coach,” he said. “It’s great that we finished fifth, but we wanted to finish first because, out of 26 teams, we believed that we’ve got the quality within the team and a good blend of different types of players to go and win it but, having said that, we were the third youngest team in the league and, out of those three teams, we finished in the highest position.
“There are lots of positives in terms of the future for Arsenal and pushing young players up in 21s football. I always say I’m not doing my job properly if we’re holding onto players. We want them to do well with 21s and then bridge that gap to first team football and we’ve done very well this season at getting players out on loan. I think in January we got another seven players, three on a permanent and four that went out on loan and almost had to re-build again, but that’s the beauty of the job in terms of sticking to your principles, teaching new players coming up with what we want and helping players on their journey.
"Can they make a positive impact and get first team staff asking who they are?"
“From a maturity point of view, you look at the lads we’ve got and how they’ve progressed this season. We’ve got some real top young talents but their all round gameplay has improved so much and that’s credit to the PL2 games programme that we’ve had, but also what they’re getting in training with us and getting exposed to the first team on a regular basis as well. That’s really helped them mature. Our biggest thing is pushing our players individually to help them reach their full potential and that’s what we’re about and that’s what we’ve tried to do this season.”
Speaking of getting exposed to the first team environment, this summer will represent more opportunities for our youngsters to impress Mikel Arteta and his coaching staff, especially with so many first team players away on international duty.
“This year you’ve got the Euros, so obviously when you have a competition like that it means that first team players will have a staggered approach to pre-season and that breeds opportunity for players,” Mehmet explained. “If they get that or not, they need to be ready. That would be the advice that they’re getting from us and that’s what we try to work on all the time.
“Every day they do get that opportunity in front of first team staff. Can they take it? Can they make a positive impact? Not just making up the numbers, but being a part of the group for the first team players to trust them, see that they’re good enough to handle the ball, cope with the environment and get the first team staff to ask who these young players coming up are. That’s what we want and hopefully they get that opportunity in the summer.”
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