Mehmet Ali was delighted with his side’s performance in Monday’s 3-0 win away to Norwich City’s under-21s at Carrow Road.
Goals from Michal Rosiak, Jimi Gower and Will Sweet earned us a convincing victory in Norfolk, with a bonus clean sheet from Tommy Setford and his defence.
“It's always great to keep a clean sheet and I thought the boys really deserved and earned it this evening in their performance,” Mehmet said after the game. “I thought some of our attacking play and the goals we scored were really good, but also defensively, some of the blocks and not allowing our opponents to get into good areas was great.
“I thought the way the boys started the game this evening was really, really strong. We went for our opponents and the amount of times in high press we caused our opponents problems by not being able to get out was great. So a really good performance, scoring three goals and keeping a clean sheet was brilliant.”
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The victory lifted us up to sixth in the Premier League 2 on 32 points, qualifying our young Gunners for the play-offs in the competition.
“Yes, it's always nice, we always want to finish in the top 16 in our league to have more games and have more playoff games and play as many good teams as we can to challenge ourselves,” Mehmet said. “But I think more importantly, it's been good that we've had some of the younger players step up and perform like they have done and the older boys have supported them really well in that.”
We earned the clean sheet with a centre-back pairing of Marli Salmon and Will Sweet, who have both stepped up from the under-18s and under-21s.
“Yes, they've done great,” Mehmet said. “Obviously, Marli’s an under-16 and Will's a second-year scholar and both of them, week on week, have been really improving and getting better. And when you do have a young backline, you're always going to get exposed at times.
“But I thought the way the older boys helped them and the way those younger ones are learning their trade as they're going and working together has been really good to see.”
Mehmet was also asked about what it was like for our players to play in front of a crowd at Carrow Road on Monday.
“It's brilliant,” he said. “We're very thankful to Norwich to host the game at Carrow Road this evening. There was a good crowd there, a lot of Norwich fans, and that was good for our boys to silence the crowd at times with some of the football that we played and the goals that we scored. And that's what you've got to do as a footballer.
“So, especially for some of our older lads, they've got to experience that because hopefully in six months' time they're going to be playing in front of that.”
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