I said we’d nothing to lose on Tuesday at Arsenal, but what did we gain?
Well, the big thing was that Kalvin Phillips demonstrated his fitness and he must surely make his Premier League return at Norwich on Saturday. We’ve missed him so much, and it’s an important game for him to come back to.
Cody Drameh also made his full debut at Arsenal, and it was good to see him come through that. The experience he will be able to draw on and take forward is immense and it was a big moment for him and an important one in his development as a player.
We also created a few chances in the first-half which a positive, but the negative was that we didn’t take them and ultimately that proved costly.
Once Arsenal scored the result was never in doubt. What was frustrating was seeing Eddie Nketiah score. Here was a player who couldn’t get into our team a couple of years ago when on loan, but has found his feet at Arsenal and is scoring goals. How we could do with a player like him in the absence of Pat, or as competition for him.
The game died as a contest in the second half with all the substitutions and while it was good to see some of the younger players come on, it was also a bit of a dead rubber because the game was well an truly over long before the whistle.
