Jack Wilshere said there were reasons to be positive about our performance in Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur under-18s.
“Performance wise I thought we were the better team,” he said after the match. “I thought we had the majority of the control in the game.
“Maybe we allowed them too much time and space in the first half but I felt we dealt with that and found our way. We always expected them to start first, we were coming to their place, it’s a derby and they always want to do that.
“We didn’t start great and suffered a little bit for that but found our way back in the game and we dominated the second half, came back into it when we were 2-1 up and had moments to win the game and kill it off.
“When you play against good teams in big games, you always have to be careful when you’re winning by one goal. We knew Tottenham would be dangerous on the counter-attack and it hurts more.
“If I have my development hat on, I’m proud of the boys because we were brave and tried to do the right things.
“The last five or six weeks have been different as we’ve been scoring and been up in games. We showed something different today.
“When you go one down, to deal with their momentum, energy and pressure, I felt we were good and showed character to come back into the game.”
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