Jack Wilshere was over the moon with his under-18s’ performance in Saturday night’s 7-1 win at home to Crewe Alexandra in the third round of the FA Youth Cup.
“I thought we played well in the first half,” he said. “It’s always difficult when you play against a team that’s sitting in, waiting for mistakes. You have to be really good and in youth development when we’re trying to develop our players to take risks and play out from the back, sometimes you’re going to make a mistake and then when you go 1-0 down against teams like this they make it difficult, but I loved our attitude in the second half. I thought we were top. Credit to my assistant Burch, he changed the press and asked them to be more aggressive and on the front foot and really use those moments when they’re trying to play out as a chance to win the ball back when they’re a little bit more open and play through them. When you have good players, they can make the difference.
On Ethan Nwaneri, who scored five goals in the second half of the match, Jack was quick to praise our youngster’s ‘killer instinct.’
“He actually really gave a new meaning to a game of two halves, right? He was quiet in the first half and I thought we couldn’t really find him in those spaces and there wasn’t enough movement from in front of him to allow him to get on the ball, but then, like I said, in the second half when I thought we were pressing and the game opened up a bit more, when you have someone with that ability and then, I saw a killer instinct in him today, he wanted that goal. Every goal he scored he wanted it. He prepped his touch and finished it nicely, but it’s credit to the players around him as well for getting him those opportunities, pressing well, feeding him, and overall a really good team performance.”
Last season’s FA Youth Cup run, getting to the final but losing to West Ham United, acts as extra motivation for the competition this time around.
“I said that to the players before the game,” Jack explained. “I showed them images of the final from last year and asked them to think back and remember that feeling and use that as fire and fuel to really have a go this year. Last year I think we were really good at taking each game as it comes, prepping each game and looking at the opposition. Again, it’s going to be the same. We know that in the next round we’ve got Fleetwood or Liverpool so it’s going to be a tough game. Two different games so we’ll be keeping a close eye on that but we’ll be ready to go there and hopefully show the personality we did tonight.”
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