Mehmet on West Brom defeat

Arsenal under-21s coach Mehmet Ali encouraged his side to adapt better to difficult conditions after our away defeat to West Bromwich Albion. 

Reece Hall opened the scoring after the half-hour mark, and Eseosa Sule scored a late brace in added time to clinch three points for the home side. 

Mehmet spoke about the difficulty of finding a rhythm on what was a subpar playing surface at Keys Park.

“It’s a good opportunity for the players to learn because this is the second game we’ve had this season where the pitch has not been great, and our opponents have adapted and played on the pitch a lot better than we have done,” said Mehmet. “We’re used to playing on better surfaces, and it showed tonight as we struggled to get into a rhythm. But what was frustrating was the goals we gave away, and at this level, you can’t give away cheap goals.

“When it’s 1-0 we’re now chasing the game, and they’re sitting back which made it very difficult for us to create opportunities.

“I think we tried to move the ball in the first half, and we did that well at times, but we were a little bit naive given the pitch. But credit to West Brom, they played in a low block, made it difficult for us and caught us on transition late on.

“They executed their game plan better than what we did so we’ve got to get better at understanding how we can do better in certain situations.”

Despite the result, Mehmet is looking forward to hopefully getting a more positive result on Friday night when we travel to Chelsea.

“Credit to the players because they’ve trained hard this week, which is good to see but Friday will be a tough one going to Chelsea. They’re doing well and have a lot of good players, plus it’s a London derby which we’re looking forward to.”