Max Porter reflected on a tough night for our under-21s, as we lost a narrow encounter 1 - 0 to West Ham United.
We fought hard in the first half, narrowly missing out on the lead when Osman Kamara's effort deflected just wide.
The Hammers got the only goal of the contest five minutes into the second half through captain Kaelan Casey, and despite the best effort of our Gunners, the hosts held on to take all three points.
On the performance...
"Very tight contest but if I'm honest we're disappointed. We had the lion's share of the possession, pushed them back into a low block a lot but their low block is very compact and they defended really well. But on our side we're disappointed that we didn't have enough creativity and didn't get the last pass right at the last moment to create a good chance.
"In a London derby, we competed, we wanted to come out and set the tone in the game and be the dominant side. I think we did that to a point, but then we didn't threaten enough and I think that's disappointing.
"I think in games like that where you don't threaten enough and you're not going to score, you can't give away a gift like we did, to (allow West Ham) to score from a corner in that manor is not going to help our players have careers, so we need to make sure we help them with that.
"But it was actually the moments before, coming out after half-time, we had a sloppy moment in possession, we gave them impetus, they then got the corner and we didn't deal with the corner and in elite football, whether it's League Two, League One, Premier League, Champions League, if you make one mistake, you can't let it lead to two otherwise it ends up in your net."
On learning from mistakes...
"It is a learning curve if we are self-aware enough to understand it and to go yeah, we can't let that happen again, we've got to learn and be better, that's the question that we always have to ask ourselves.
"We have to look in the mirror, myself, the staff, the players and we have to go actually, it's one thing it happening, but how are we going to learn from it, how are we going to apply it, otherwise it's just a wasted moment in their development and we've got no time for wasted moments if we're going to produce players for our first team and to have careers in the game."
On our start to the second half...
"I think in these games, especially when you're playing an opponent that is so deep and so compact, the first goal is crucial. We've experienced that a lot over the past few years, our first team have experienced it on a weekly basis playing against low blocks, we've had it in the UEFA Youth League and tonight was the same.
"The first goal in these games is so important and then for it to be a gift like that was deflating. West Ham had a spell after that and we were a bit rocked, we didn't recover well, we invited transitions and if West Ham had scored again it would've been 2 - 0 and we wouldn't have had a chance to get back in the game.
"Fortunately it was 1 - 0 and we could still push but obviously tonight without a goal."
On the young players with the first team in Dubai...
"The lads going away, I can only speak from the past few years, all the players that have gone away that have been coached by Mikel and his staff, they come back with a wholly different perspective.
"They're around top players and top coaches and to have that from the manager and his staff, we always see it when the players come back, they've improved but also with hunger because that's what they want."
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