Wells sets bar high for FA Youth Cup clash with Arsenal

Under-18s Coach Matt Wells wants his players to express themselves and not reminisce about previous triumphs in Thursday’s FA Youth Cup fourth round tie at Arsenal.

Back in November, our youngsters secured an important 3-2 win over the Gunners in a second-v-first clash in the Under-18 Premier League, moving back to the top of the table at the expense of our rivals.

We remain at the summit now and are still unbeaten in all domestic competitions following Saturday's 4-1 win at Brighton but, for Matt, the most important thing is how the players perform in a fresh, high-stakes game when we lock horns with the Gunners' youth team once more at Boreham Wood FC (7pm).

“In youth football there’s never too much correlation between games so we’re not really looking back at past matches,” he explained.

“My main focus is going to be to try to review the Brighton game with the players and looking at how we can return to the level of performance we had, certainly before Christmas, because I do feel that has been lacking in the last couple of matches.

“Our preparation will be more focused on ourselves and picking up our level because we won’t have a massive amount of time to train, as the game comes around so fast on Thursday.”

The Under-18s progressed to the fourth round of the competition with a 2-1 win over Millwall after extra time last month. Having fallen behind in the first half, we fought back to level through J’Neil Bennett in injury time before Rodel Richards sealed our progress with a 94^th-minute winner.

The FA Youth Cup is one of several competitions that our youngsters have been benefitting from this season and Matt is hopeful that they can take their opportunity to impress once again under the floodlights in this latest north London derby.

“I expect them to enjoy what is an incredible platform,” he said. “We’re still doing well in the league, we’ve got the UEFA Youth League, which a lot of these players feature in, we’ve had the Checkatrade Trophy and we’ve got the Under-18 Premier League Cup quarter-final coming up so there’s an incredible amount of opportunities for these players - all good platforms against top opposition to go and show the type of players they are.

“That’s my hope - that, on Thursday night, a lot of them can go and demonstrate how much they’ve improved this season and how ambitious they are for the next step in their development."