Interview

Birchall reflects on Youth Cup defeat

Adam Birchall was proud of how our under-18s fought in their 3-2 defeat to Manchester United in the FA Youth Cup on Friday night.

Playing under the lights at Emirates Stadium, our Gunners came from behind to lead 2-1 thanks to goals either side of half-time from Louis Copley and Max Dowman.

United struck back with five minutes to go in normal time however, and got themselves a winner in the first half of extra time to progress to the semi-finals.

On the performance…

“Super proud, I said to the boys after the game that football can be cruel. They’ve given absolutely everything.

“For such a young team, the way they dug in and the rollercoaster of the game, to still be pushing at the end to try and get something out of it really showed the personality they have, which is definitely a bedrock to go and have a career.

“It’s going to hurt, they’ll need the weekend maybe to get over it but then they’ve got to use that hurt on Monday and we’ll go again.”

On the physicality of Manchester United…

“Yeah we spoke about it before the game, we were clear in what Arsenal is to us and that is the togetherness, attack with 11, defend with 11 and we definitely saw that tonight and I was super proud of that.”

On playing at Emirates Stadium…

“Look around you! This is a spectacular place to come and play your football. It’s where a lot of these lads will go to bed at night dreaming of playing in the end.

“When the dust settles, I know that they’ll never forget this night. But we need to make sure that this night, regardless of the score, is a springboard to go and kick on and try to build a career.”

On the rest of the league season…

“(We take) the mentality and we build on it. Let’s get better, let’s get stronger. I thought at times when we were good with the ball, we were really effective.

“We need to still work on our technical efficiency, our timing and a few defensive duels. So it’s no different to when we speak after a Saturday for me! The only difference is that we played under this pressure.

“There’s a few more things to reflect on but it’s about going again on Monday.”