Our under-21s were beaten 3-1 by Bishop's Stortford at the ProKit UK Stadium in a pre-season friendly on Wednesday night.
Charlie Castle opened the scoring for the home side in the 21st minute but we almost responded through Romari Forde.
Josh Robinson made a great run from right back, beating four opponents before laying it off to Forde who shot straight at the goalkeeper.
Brian Okonkwo made a great save down to his near post to deny Kian Harness after Castle put in a low cross from the right wing, before we came close to an equaliser.
Osman Kamara teed up Zac Shuaib who hit it first time from 20 yards out, just missing the top right corner, meaning we went into the break a goal behind.
We made two changes during the interval with Nathan Butler-Oyedeji and Khayon Edwards coming on for Seb Ferdinand and Forde.
Ronan Ismali had a free-kick deflected over the wall for Bishop's Stortford early in the second half and a cross then dropped to Harness but Okonkwo rushed off of his line to close the ball down.
In the 55th minute, the hosts doubled their lead as Ismali was released down the right wing and he rolled the ball across to Ryan Charles, who placed it into the bottom right corner.
Bishop's Stortford's substitute goalkeeper Jayden Peglar then made a brilliant fingertip save to prevent Edwards from pulling one back.
In the ascendancy, Ismeal Kabia got onto a long ball down the right wing and put a good cross in but the ball was deflected wide for a corner, before Butler-Oyedeji had an effort from close range cleared off of the line.
But the third goal came with ten minutes to go as we didn't clear a long free-kick and Luke Warner-Eley poked it across the six yard box for a tap-in scored by Callum Leggat.
We kept at it, Ismail Oulad M'Hand setting up Elian Quesada-Thorn with a lovely rabona flick, the latter forcing a decent save from the goalkeeper.
We were rewarded late on, Kabia cutting it back for Harrison Dudziak to score from close range.
Team news
Bishops's Stortford: Binns (Peglar 70), Silva, Warner-Eley, Oluwatimhilehin (Rotomi 60), Thompson, Haines, Castle (Ismali 46), Moutawafiq, Harness (Ogwua 74), Russel (Leggat 70), Charles (Virciglio 68.
Substitutes not used: Virciglio, Cook, Halford, Ford.
Arsenal: Okonkwo (Porter 62), Robinson (Kacurri 62), Clarke, Sweet (Julienne 62), Ismail (Monlouis 62), Shuaib (Kabia 62), Copley (Ismail Oulad M’Hand 62), Casey (Dudziak 62), Ferdinand (Edwards 46), Kamara (Quesada-Thorn 62), Forde (Butler-Oyedeji 46).
Substitutes not used: Ibrahim.
What's next
Our under-21s are back in action with a pre-season friendly away to Lincoln City at Sincil Bank for a 3pm kick-off on Saturday, August 3.
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