Adam Birchall gave his thoughts on a thrilling penalty shoot-out victory over QPR in the FA Youth Cup for our U18s on Saturday night.
The score had been level at 2-2 after 90 minutes, but we took the lead through Louis Zecevic-John in the first half of extra time.
There was one more twist however, as Emmerson Sutton completed a hat-trick for QPR to send the tie to penalties.
Jack Porter then went on to save two of the four QPR spot kicks, allowing us to win the shoot-out 4-2 and progress to the next round.
On his assessment of the game...
“I just said to the players, our overall feeling is mixed. I’m really pleased for them because I know how much the Youth Cup means to them. I’m really proud of them for the effort they put in because that was an emotional rollercoaster that game.
“But our challenge was based on what we want to do, I think we had to change too much, we lacked the technical quality to play our game tonight. So mixed but proud of them as young people.”
On the resilience and determination shown in the tie…
“Yeah, as they get older, they have to understand that there’s no easy games. QPR, credit to them. They played really well and had some really dangerous players on the night. Some lads have played more U21s than our lads and some lads have been on loan and come back to play.
“But that led to a brilliant opportunity for our players to experience it, under the lights in the Youth Cup, so really pleased for them and that they’ve got through it, but there’s a lot to learn.”
On Jack Porter’s performance and his importance to the side…
“Jack played really well today. I think he’ll think he could’ve done better with the first goal, we should’ve done better with the first goal. But like you say, he made some magnificent saves and showed real character and personality when the team needed him in the penalty shoot-out.
“So for him, it’s how does he get better, how does he improve? And that’s important no matter what age group he’s with, that he’s constantly pushing. That’s the same for Kari Ranson who's on the bench today as well, they push each other in training and they’re both fighting to start games. But I’m pleased with a lot of the things Jack did today.”
On what we need to do to progress further in the FA Youth Cup…
“We want to play better. We’ve conceded too many goals this season in my opinion and they’ve come from, a lot of the time, us having ball possession so we’ve got to be technically cleaner and have more understanding of how to play with each other in each part of the pitch.
“Again, it comes down to duels. In 1v1s with the ball, can we hurt the opposition? Without the ball, are we good enough to stop them? So yeah, these are all things we need to train. It’s all very well saying things now, but again, some good feedback around the players’ development and taking that on board moving forward we want to develop further.”
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