Ben Wilkinson couldn't fault the attitude or application of his Manchester City under-18s on Tuesday, but expressed regret they weren't able to showcase their best in a footballing sense in defeat at Arsenal in the FA Youth Cup semi-final.
Wilkinson admitted that his gameplan 'went out of the window' after just seven minutes at the Emirates Stadium when City defender Lakyle Samuel was sent off as last man, and Arsenal scored the resulting free-kick. However, the young Blues adapted with ten men and sent the game to extra time thanks to Justin Oboavwoduo's 75th-minute equaliser.
The semi-final looked to be decided on penalties until Myles Lewis-Skelly headed home in injury time at the end of extra time to leave City devastated and Arsenal jubilant. Reflecting on the defeat, U18s coach Wilkinson said the dressing room was devastated after such a heroic effort with ten men.
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"It was really difficult [in the dressing room]," Wilkinson told MEN Sport.
"I did find it difficult to deliver the right words. There was nothing I could say. Obviously we're proud of them, they did fantastically well. But we didn't come here to lose and they're winners, the boys. They've grown up winning and love that feeling. They're mentally disappointed I think, especially the older ones knowing they probably won't get another crack at it.
"They put so much into the game, physically and mentally. It was increased by the circumstances in the game, they're devastated. It's really hard for me to pick them up now."
With Samuel's seventh-minute sending-off, City's plan of taking the game to Arsenal had to be ripped up. While that gave Wilkinson and his coaches a chance to see how the players perform under pressure - as he had asked for before the game - City were left rueing the missed opportunity to compete at the Emirates in an open, attacking contest.
Wilkinson explained: "We'd worked on quite a lot of things about how we wanted to hurt them on the ball, a certain way of playing and how we wanted to defend. Certainly with the ball that changed because we'd have been too open to continue playing like that. From my point of view, the sending-off and the free kick goes in, it's more like how can we take the game as deep as we can. To do that we had to become a more compact, organised, defensive look which we really don't like doing.
"The game plan was out of the window in terms of with the ball. The game plan was out of the window trying to be aggressive and press high up the pitch. It was really difficult. A good experience for the lads, because we don't really talk about what we'll do if we lose a player after ten minutes so they really had to make some decisions themselves.
"More often than not, especially when the free kick goes in, that game finishes 4-0 or 5-0. The mentality and their desire and what they've shown is they can play without the ball and do the things that question marks are sometimes asked of them. From a development point of view it's great that they've had that, it's just unfortunate they've had it in this game."
While City will obviously be disappointed not to reach the Youth Cup final, and have no rewards for their heroic efforts, Wilkinson did accept that some positives can be taken from the experience.
"It's really difficult. We saw we had great desire and determination, just pure will to win and get through," he said. "We saw that which was great. But I also wanted to see the part where you come here to the Emirates, we've got great footballers, can we beat them in a game of football playing the way we want to play?
"That was disappointing we didn't get to see that. But obviously in the circumstances of the game, that's the game and world we live in. We had to adapt and we did as well as we could.
"It's a real bitter pill to swallow so you certainly get that. Development side, they'll have got a lot out of tonight on one hand. On the other we've lost a bit because we didn't get the chance to see some things we wanted to see."
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