Mehmet Ali shared an honest assessment of our under-21s’ 3-0 defeat away to Colchester United on Tuesday night.
The loss saw us eliminated from the Bristol Street Motors Trophy after finishing third in the group stage.
“Really tough night, we’re really disappointed and deflated in there and rightly so,” Mehmet said. “Our opponents deserved to win the game. I said to the lads at half-time I’d felt like we’d jumped into freezing cold water and we couldn’t catch our breath. We made poor decisions, had too many giveaways in silly areas, but credit to our opponent. They played direct at times, made some passes and dropped off and deserved to win.
“For me the biggest positive from today is for the lads to look in the mirror as staff and players and realise the level of a League Two side and how competitive they were. Some of these lads are not going to be playing for Arsenal and the reality is they’ve got to fight to try to stay in the league. Today our opponents were better than us. We’ve got to be better with the basics, work harder and train better to give them a fighting chance to stay in football.
“The fans were outstanding tonight. We had 300-400 there and their support was amazing. I’ve just said to the lads in there we have to do more for them. We have to play better than we did. We need to go again and be ready for our next fixture.
“We’ve got some behind closed doors games, which are really good opportunities for the lads to impress other clubs so we’re looking forward to them. Back to the training ground to brush ourselves off and keep working to help these lads.”
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