Max Porter discussed our UEFA Youth League experiences after Tuesday’s 3-0 defeat away to Sporting Lisbon.
The result saw us fall to 29th in the competition with three points from five games.
“It’s a very similar situation and feeling which means we’ve got a lot of learnings to help the players with,” he said. “It’s something we’e spoken a lot about, even before the tournament started. We had a lot of reflection and tried to prepare as best as possible. We understand momentum is very in these games and spoke about the importance of the first goal.
“If you look at Atalanta, we started very well and they scored from the first corner against us. Against PSG, we actually got the first goal and then we had something we could build on and saw the game out. Shakhtar was 70 percent possession and they had one shot on goal so the importance of the first goal, it was very similar today.
“I thought both teams today were a bit passive and tentative at the start. Sporting played a slightly different shape defensively and maybe a sign of respect to us, but it doesn’t really come down to much if we give away cheap goals and don’t have the foundation to perform from.
“The first goal was a technical error in terms of decision making to try to play back inside. On the second goal our plan was to try to trap them on the sides because they had an overload centrally. We trapped them where we want but we didn’t get the ball. If you don’t press the ball with intent, it doesn’t matter what you do with your tactics.
“At half-time we were very honest with each other as a group and came out and said we’ve got to give everything. Again, similar to Inter, we had a similar response, but did we have enough threat? We can help the players as much as possible, but there’s a reason players like Bukayo are ruthless, because of what he’s got in his locker. They’ve got to bring that to the party.”
There were good moments during the game and Max Dowman always catches the eye, but Porter was disappointed with how much Sporting’s players were allowed to foul him.
“Max’s bravery and the way he wants the ball is similar to what Ethan [Nwaneri] is doing with the first team at the moment, in terms of the players trusting him to give him the ball and make something happen,” he said.
“I just felt that the referee today… I’m not usually one for talking about referees and it has no bearing on our performance or result, but I actually felt towards the end he put the players at risk in terms of protecting them. He let a lot go which meant there was no consequence. The Sporting players then began to target Max particularly because of his talent. That was really disappointing and I communicated that to the ref and his assistants at the end of the game.”
Looking ahead to our final Youth League league phase game, we host Monaco at Meadow Park on Monday, December 11
“We know it’s about development but I’m not going to lie, the players want to win and we want to win while developing the players,” Porter said. “We want them to improve and get better. The fruits of our labour are to try to get players into our first team. Ethan’s done it, Myles is around it. If we don’t do that, we want to give them the best career possible so they can look back with pride.
“We try to attack every game. We haven’t had the outcomes or consistent performances in different areas of the game. We’ll attack the last game and do everything we can to win it. Similar to PSV last year, hopefully that will put us in a position to see what comes next.”
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
