Steve Bates feels Hampton and Richmond's FA Youth Cup defeat was a good learning excercise
By Joe Acklam
29th Sep 2022 | Football
Steve Bates felt there was plenty for Hampton and Richmond to learn from their FA Youth Cup defeat, 4-0 against Edgware and Kingsbury.
The young Hampton team were in the game for a large period before two late goals made the score line seem less favourable than the creditable performance had deserved.
The Beavers academy manager felt that switches they made at half-time were not fully understood and that contributed to a game that got away from them at the end.
Steve Bates said to club media after the game: "At 1-0 at half-time we felt we were still in the game and we tried to improve some of the things around our press and the young group didn't quite get the understanding.
"The third and the fourth goal are an irrelevance to us, in the nicest possible way, because we went to a 343 and we are trying to get back into the game.
"Credit to them, they were much better than us tonight, they passed the ball better, their desire was better and they were athletically better.
"I think we created some of our own problems prior to the game with some discipline issues, but we have to learn from that, it is not an excuse and we were beaten by a better team tonight.
"The boys can take a lot from the whole FA Youth Cup run and the value goes up to the club as we had maybe 20 people watching us tonight from the club, which is a really nice turnout away at Hendon on a cold September night, so I am so grateful for them.
"These are good boys and they have a lot of learning to do to develop, but we had 11 first years out there and hopefully they will be better for the experience."
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