Steve Gatting spoke to Arsenal.com following the under-19s' 4-2 defeat to Barcelona in the quarter-finals of the Uefa Youth League on Tuesday. This is what he had to say:
on the result…
The boys are very down at the moment because we lost. But after playing so well attacking-wise, and dominating the first 20 minutes away to Barcelona, we deserved something more than we got. Obviously the fact we got back to 2-2 near the end and didn't quite hold out, they are disappointed.
on the opening spell to the game…
Our gameplan was to press them up the pitch and try to stop them getting their passing game going. The boys did that perfectly without getting a goal up. After going 1-0 down, and Barca getting back in the game a bit, passing to around and keeping possession, getting the equaliser before half time helped us.
on Deyan Iliev’s red card…
I haven’t seen it again yet, but it looked a certain sending off.
on whether that was the turning point…
Yes. We did fantastically well to get back to 2-2, so we are doubly disappointed that we let the third goal in when we just needed to hold on for four or five minutes and then it would have gone to penalties.
on what the players have learnt…
It has been a great learning curve for them. Games like this, they are developing and learning the game. We said in the dressing room that we maybe need to know a bit more about how to see a game through, not get so stretched in the second half, times to press and not to press, times to do one against ones. All those things have been said and the boys are learning. It is not until you play against the very good sides in Europe that you get punished for the mistakes that you make.
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