Mark Robinson spoke enthusiastically about helping more young players to come through the ranks after yesterday’s encouraging display in the London Senior Cup.
Though first-teamers featured in the quarter-final tie against Brentford B, a crop of young talents caught the eye, including Huseyin Biler, Finlay Macnab, and Zach Robinson.
As Lead Professional Phase Coach and Loans manager, Mark has been responsible for overseeing young players getting experience at other clubs with first year pros and second year scholars going out on loan this season.
Speaking after yesterday’s penalty shoot-out loss against Brentford, which came after an entertaining 2-2 draw, Robbo said: “Brentford have got one of the best structures down there with their B team. Their games programme is unbelievable as they travel all over Europe playing matches and I would like to think that our fans saw that our young talents were more than a match for them.
“Finlay was disappointed with the first goal because he shouldn’t be doing that and he’s better than that, but the rest of his play was good and his reaction was excellent. Huseyin is just such an exciting talent. I’m really mindful that we shouldn’t over-coach him. As a coach, there are times when he scares you because he’s doing stuff, but at the same time if you put 4,000 fans in the stadium watching him then he will be getting them on their feet. He’s so exciting and such a threat. He just needs to keep learning the defensive side of the game, making sure he doesn’t get caught out. He was excellent.
“It would have been great to have gone further in the competition, but now we will be looking to get game-time at other clubs for the second year boys who are not currently out on loan. They had some people watching them today. Those boys will go out on loan because we only have a couple of weeks to do that. All of the second year scholars will therefore be out on loan and we may look at getting a first year out if they are ready. First year pros Archie (Procter) and Ayoub (Assal) are both playing at Met Police and Zach (Robinson) was allowed back to play for us. I thought he was a real threat when he came on. It’s about getting all the boys out on loan, so that they are getting that experience of men’s football, to be ready for next year. Rob (Tuvey) will continue playing first-year scholars and Under-16s in the Under-18s and he’s even been putting Under-15s in.”
In case you missed it on our social media channels, Robbo’s full post-match interview can be viewed below.