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Laraman on win, Akpom and semi-finals

Carl Laraman
Carl Laraman

Arsenal Under-18s coach Carl Laraman spoke to Arsenal.com after his side beat Everton to qualify for the last four the Youth Cup on Monday. 

Read a transcript of what he had to say:

on reaching the semi-finals…
I'm very proud of the boys. We've had a couple of tough ties but I don't think they come much tougher than that. Everton are a top academy, they teach their boys to play the right way and it was a very difficult game. We went in at half-time 2-0 up and we wanted to stay on the front foot. But we didn't do that in the second half and they score within two minutes. It was a very difficult quarter of an hour but we rode it out and played some good stuff towards the end. We created a few more opportunities and then Jack Jebb bent in a free-kick. I was just pleased that they put on a performance that suits the Club and its philosophy. Of course there are improvements we can can make but we went about our business in the right way.

on the team being clinical in front of goal…
We think that we could have had a few more. We've taken three chances but two were set-plays. In open play we had two or three chances where perhaps we needed to make the keeper work a bit harder. But the penalty was taken very well and it was a great free-kick from Jack [Jebb]. Chuba [Akpom] took his goal very well. Chuba played 90 minutes on loan on Saturday and then 90 minutes tonight. He should be proud of himself.

on going all the way in the competition…
It's one game at a time. The next game is a two-legged tie and I'm going up to Newcastle on Tuesday to watch the other quarter-final. We get the winners of Chelsea and Newcastle and we'll just take it from the next game.

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