The young Bees were undone by four first half goals but created countless opportunities for themselves, with Gustav Mogensen impressing as he helped himself to two goals in Salzburg.

Discussing the defeat, Sam said: “The scoreline wasn’t a fair reflection, I thought it was a really good game, the intensity levels were good and it’s the sort of game that we want the players to play in.

“I thought we were the better side in the first half when it came to using the ball, but we’ve conceded four goals in one half, so defensively there are things that need to be worked on and looked at. The set piece goal killed us early doors and then we made a mistake with a crossfield ball.

“They’re sloppy mistakes which we know about, we had some lovely openings with some three-v-twos out wide and we created some really good chances. Gustav took his goal well, but we let them back in. They had a free kick on the edge of their box, and we’ve been a bit naïve and not stood on the ball and we’ve let them play and we were punished because their biggest threat was on the counterattack.

“The team shape was good; we knew they would play a diamond, so we worked on it. We haven’t really done that this season in terms of looking at the opposition’s shape and a lot of our coaching points and schedule has been based on playing against the diamond. We worked it well and switched the ball because they were particularly weak in wide areas. We got in some good crossing areas, we just didn’t have the final ball, the finish or the time of the run which is what we’ve been going on about to the boys this week.”

When asked about the threat that Liefering posed, Sam believes the side provided an excellent test for the team, and they can learn a lot from the game.

“They were a physical team, strong athletes, and they looked to sit and play on the counterattack and every time and they moved the ball quickly and when we switched off, they were on it,” said Sam. “Looking at their facilities, for an academy, it’s incredible and it gives us something to aspire towards and if you look at the facilities compared to the team there wasn’t anything in it in terms of on the pitch and that’s credit to the work that we all do down at Jersey Road.”

With Gustav once again in the goals for the team, Sam believes the young Dane is progressing nicely.

He continued: “He’s progressing nicely, I came into the club for a period in February last year and saw him. He’s a completely different player now, we feel he’s growing as a person and as a man, we’re trying to get him to be more aggressive and he’s such a nice lad so sometimes he takes that onto the football pitch. We just want to get him to be more aggressive so he’s ready for men’s football. He had two undoubted bits of quality today, he’s got six goals in five games now. He played slightly out of position today, but he doesn’t moan, he comes in and, if anything, he looked even more of a threat coming from the left wing that he does down the centre as a number nine. That’s something positive to take out of today.”