Adam Birchall was keen to focus on the positives from our under-18s 4-4 draw with Tottenham Hotspur.
We led 4-3 after a frantic first half thanks to goals from Max Dowman, Sam Onyekachukwu, Ife Ibrahim and Louis Zecevic-John.
But despite a determined second-half performance, we had to settle for a point after Spurs equalised with the final kick of the game.
Birchall felt that we would have deserved the three points had we held out.
“Obviously I’ve got a lot of disappointed players in the dressing room, but I’ve tried to remind them how good they were in the first half. That performance with the ball and without it was probably as complete as we’ve been this year in terms of all moments of the game.
“Really set pieces in that half, although we were the better team and dominating possession, territory, chances, starving them of the ball with our press, the set pieces made it a tighter game going in at half time and it swung the momentum in the second half."
The point against Spurs extends our unbeaten run to eight games, which Birchall put down to the focus and determination of our young Gunners.
“It’s something that you build over time, the little relationships here and there on the training ground and what you demand.
“Also it’s the guys enjoying their football as well. That’s important, and I know they were very passionate about today’s game, being against Spurs and I know they felt the game last time was an unfair scoreline really.
“Today again, lots of goals have gone in, but they showed a lot of passion today.”
Ife Ibrahim was a standout performer in Tuesday’s derby, and his manager has been proud of our midfielder's recent development.
“It’s nice that you bring him up! You can see with the ball he maintains possession really well. He’s starting to improve his high-value passing, he’s more of a threat playing forward, which has been really good to see.
“The last two or three weeks we’ve seen some big tackles from him, as well as interceptions and all the stuff he usually does, so long way to go, but at the moment his intentions are putting him in the right direction to get better and that’s the important thing.”
With two games to go, our under-18s are still in the U18 Premier League South title race, but Birchall remains focused on the development of his players.
“We want to get better! I seem to repeat myself every week, but we want to get better, improve what we’re doing, learn from the positives today, learn from the 100% set pieces today and really just keep that positive momentum and passion for getting better, that’s really important.
“I think having not been beaten for eight games, that helps the boys with that as well, so we need to just get better.”
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