Steve Bould was delighted with his side’s 3-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League 2 on Friday night.
Our under-23s raced into a commanding first-half lead, thanks to goals from Robbie Burton and Trae Coyle, before Nathan Tormey cancelled out Harvey White’s strike and restored our two-goal lead deep into stoppage time.
Our head coach spoke to Arsenal.com after the final whistle - and this is what he said:
on the performance…
It was a very good win, I think it could have probably been about 6-5. The only disappointment for me is that we didn’t keep a clean sheet because in 12 games we haven’t kept one and it’s important for the lads because if they want to play at the next level, they have to keep clean sheets and win games from that perspective. Having said that there were some good performances, we created a lot of chances and it was a really entertaining game that was also physically quite tough because Spurs are a good side.
on winning for the first time since September…
It’s great for the players to get back to winning ways. We had a lot of chances and it’s good that Reiss Nelson played 45 minutes after a while out and Emile (Smith Rowe) gets 90 minutes. Dino’s (Mavropanos) is looking better and better by the week so in that respect it was a very good game from a first-team perspective. I think we should have scored more goals but they also created lots of chances so all credit to us because it was an extremely tough game.
on Trae Coyle’s performance…
He’s had a very good season, it’s nice that he scored because he doesn’t score enough for his ability and he knows that and he’s working on it so it’s great to see him on the scoresheet. The nice thing is Nathan (Tormey) who didn’t start the game came on and looked lively and was rewarded with his goal. The attacking side is the good side the only negative was our defensive side of the game.
on the benefits of playing with players with first-team experience...
It can only help, just looking at yesterday’s training session, the quality is just that level higher and they (Nelson and Smith Rowe) stretch our players. Personally I don’t like them playing too many games because it takes places away from people but the true benefit is in training sessions.
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