Development Squad Head Coach Flemming Pedersen admitted it was a very poor performance from his side as they were beaten 4-2 by Coventry City in their final U21 Professional Development League Two game of the season on Monday. Despite taking an early lead through Jan Holldack’s 14th of the season, The Bees struggled to play with any fluency and were pegged back by Kyle Spence midway through the first-half. George Thomas scored twice in the second-half, either side of a Ben Stevenson effort to wrap up the points for the home side, Nathan Fox netting late on for The Bees.
Speaking to Bees Player after the match Flemming said that Monday’s performance was not at the level he required from his team. “It was a very poor performance from us and a deserved win for Coventry City,” said Flemming. “Inside we said the level of football was very low: Under-17 or Under-18 level. There are a lot of explanations for that with players in new positions, new players, and a young team. We had some players training with the first team in the hope of being in the first-team on Tuesday. You can say it is good learning for some of these players but you have to deal with it. It is too late if you are an Under-21 player and you can’t deal with it. We struggled a lot today and, even though we started very well and got the first goal, you could see that we didn’t have the substance individually or collectively today.”
Despite the disappointment of the performance and result Flemming said positives can be taken from the day if the players learn from what went wrong. The experienced Danish coach was delighted with the way that the players took responsibility for the loss in the post-match debrief and said that a lack of trust was a real issue for his side.
“It will be a waste if we don’t learn from it but we have very reflective players,” said Flemming. “In the dressing room after the game they were very honest about their experience on the pitch. They were saying they weren’t good today and they couldn’t help their teammates because they were in trouble themselves. All these things come from self-confidence and self-confidence comes from trust and there was a lack of trust today. We made some individual and collective mistakes today and that led to mistrust and people standing still because we were afraid of playing. You can have the best players in the team but if this is the case then you can never win.”
A number of the Development Squad have been training regularly with the first-team in recent weeks and the match at Ipswich Town earlier this month saw James Ferry named on the bench for the first time. With promotion and relegation out of the question for Dean Smith’s first-team, Flemming feels there are players who could be given a chance before the end of the campaign, but only if Dean feels they deserve it.
“I think a couple of my players are ready but they should only be in the first-team if Dean Smith thinks that they have deserved it,” said Flemming. “I will fight for the boys in the Under-21s but we will never push boys into the first-team if Dean thinks it is too early. We have a couple who are close to playing and getting their debut.”