Our under-23s returned to Premier League 2 action on Friday after a four-week mid-season break with a 2-1 win over Derby County.
Goals from Savvas Mourgos and Eddie Nketiah saw us enjoy victory for the fourth time in five league matches, in a game which saw Chuba Akpom return from injury.
Ben Sheaf played the full 90 minutes - and here's what he had to say to ArsenalPlayer after the final whistle:
on a perfect start…
Yeah definitely, we haven’t had a game for about four weeks so it was important to start the new year with a win. It was a good first half, could’ve been a bit better… but second half they got back into it with a sloppy goal from a set-piece. But we managed to get back in the game and held out for a 2-1 win.
on whether it took time to get back into the swing of things…
A little bit of cobwebs were there, definitely. But after four weeks, maybe you should expect a bit of rustiness. But no, we’re glad to get the win and considering we had four weeks off it wasn’t a bad performance.
on another win…
Like you said, a slow start but then we got about four wins on the bounce and then obviously lost at Liverpool which was a difficult game. But back to winning ways today and we just want to kick on from here and climb our way up the table.
on Derby’s goal…
As I said, conceding from a set-piece is always sloppy. But we had a lot of possession, they sat behind the ball and were difficult to break down but a great pass from Savvas [Mourgos] and a great finish from Eddie [Nketiah] gave us the win.
on Eddie’s value to the side…
He’s brilliant. On or off the bench, he’s a threat all day. When he starts there’s goals. Him, Stephy, Chuba… whoever plays, we’ve got goal threats all over the pitch so yeah, he’s very valuable to the squad.
on his hopes for 2017…
Just to continue playing 23s, train as much as I can with the first team and just get in the boss’ eye as much as I can and carry on the way I’m going.
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