Kinder on the Youth Cup game
Youth boss Eric Kinder spoke to us about the FA Youth Cup game at Gresty Road on Wednesday evening which ended in a 2-1 victory for Crewe Alexandra.
He said: “The last thing we said before we went out for kick off was that we needed to make sure we gave it everything.
“If were going to get beat then I wanted the lads to know that they couldn’t have done any more. We tried to do the right things and we worked our socks off and I have no complaints whatsoever with my group.
“They’ve taken a very, very good passing side very close and they can be pleased about that.
“The only real worry was that we didn’t pass the ball as well as we know we can in the first half. Part of that was down to the fact that Crewe didn’t allow us to play that part of our game. Other than that I thought we were terrific.
“I’m disappointed that we’ve gone out but I don’t mind losing when we’ve tried to do it properly. We’ve given a good account of ourselves and Crewe were desperate for that whistle to go at the end.
“We could have nicked a couple of goals and I think I did the right thing when I offered Robbie [Johnson] a contract. Jordan Parker has been one of our best players in this game, but he will move on and it would have been nice to have had Robbie as our second year keeper next year. He chose Crewe over us and you accept that, and I hope the lad goes on to do really well.
“Patrick Brough has improved unbelievably over the last two or three weeks and he scored another very good goal for us. He knows his role and he understands what’s expected. It’s a game he’ll always remember because he has scored on a first team pitch, under the lights, and it’s one he’ll look back on and enjoy in the future.
“Their equaliser was a horrible one for us. Tom [Berwick] gambled on the lad going inside and he showed a little bit of a naivety in the way he tried to get the ball. It was a poor goal from our point of view and it came at a time when we had probably started to think we were going to go on and win the game.
“We put Jake Chisholm on up front at the end of extra time and that’s something we also did against Burnley. He scores more goals than anybody in training so it’s something I’m comfortable with doing. We’re in a situation where Clarey, Salmon and Hodgson are all injured and we had to try it. I’ll look at it between now and the start of next season as to whether it’s a position he could play all the time because he can definitely score goals.
“The lads are all gutted about going out of this competition. I’m happy with them though because they have tried to do everything that we planned. I’m actually really proud of them. They’ve worked their socks off and I can never ask for any more than that.
“It’s a competition we like to do well in but it’s gone for us now. We have Rotherham on Saturday in the Youth Alliance Cup and that’s one we want to try to go on and win. I’ve said that for six years now and I still believe we can do it. However, this has been a game where they’ve gone into extra time and it might hold us back from what we want to do at Rotherham. We won’t know for definite until the weekend.
“We’ll close everybody down now for Thursday and Friday and hopefully, with two days rest, we’ll be able to do ourselves justice.”