Terry Burton spoke to Arsenal.com after the NextGen Series defeat to Chelsea. Below is a transcript of the interview:
on being knocked out…
A semi-final is a horrible place to lose a game and you struggle to take positives out of the game right now. But I'm sure when we look back on it, we'll see there were some excellent individual performances. There were some disappointing performances as well, but by and large I was pleased.
on the first half…
I was pleased with the way we started the game, I felt we contained Chelsea. They have an excellent academy, probably one that most clubs in Europe look to as the benchmark and I thought we more than held our own and deserved our lead at half-time.
"I thought we more than held our own and deserved our lead at half-time"
on the second half…
It was disappointing the way we committed ourselves for the penalty, we shouldn't have done that. Then we made a good save and the reaction from our players was slow, and again that is disappointing.
on Chelsea's second goal…
That is just one of those things that happens.
on the late comeback…
At 3-1 down we managed to show great commitment and better quality at that stage than we had showed in the [rest of that] half to get back in the game.
on the character of the team…
They kept trying to probe away. Even at 3-1 in the second half Kris Olsson had a great chance that he should have scored, Nico had a chance, we had some good situations. We arguably didn't deserve to be 3-1 down, but the third goal was too easy. Kiwomya caused us a problem for most of the game and we never quite got to grips with that. But it was a good comeback and we scored some excellent goals on a very difficult pitch.
"You want to test yourself against the best players in Europe. This tournament has given us the opportunity to do that"
on conceding in extra time…
One goal normally settles it in extra time, there is no recovery from goals when they are scored then. It was about who can create something different when they have opportunities and who can defend the one against ones in those situations, because that is what it comes down to at that stage of the game. You don't have enough energy to get support in behind the ball and Chelsea managed it, and credit to them.
on the whole NextGen experience…
It has been very good. Strangely enough we have not played Chelsea in the Premier League so we have had to come a long way to play them, but you want to test yourself against the best players in European football. This tournament has given us the opportunity to do that.
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