{"id":992,"date":"2026-04-26T11:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T11:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=992"},"modified":"2026-04-26T11:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T11:31:13","slug":"birchall-takes-positives-from-defeat-interview-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=992","title":{"rendered":"Birchall takes positives from defeat | Interview | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Adam Birchall took positives despite our under-18s\u2019 late defeat against West Ham United in the Premier League South.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Our young Gunners ended up on the wrong side of a thrilling seven-goal encounter, conceding a late penalty to lose the game.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI\u2019m not happy with the scoreline, but the manner of the defeat, in terms of the effort and the energy the players put into the game, I was really pleased with,\u201d Birchall said. \u201cIt was just key moments.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe didn\u2019t really manage their longer transitions and counter-attacks as well as we could have, and there were some key moments in those fast attacks. I thought that, with the ball, we played well and maybe should have scored more goals to make the game more comfortable.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cBut in the end, I can\u2019t fault the players\u2019 efforts. We\u2019re obviously disappointed to have lost the game and conceded four goals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Birchall also highlighted Saurap Sampang\u2019s standout performance.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI was really pleased with Saurap. We call him the glue in the group. He\u2019s had to wait for his chance this year, and even today, he was playing out of position at right-back, he\u2019s more of a midfield-type player.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cBut we\u2019ve been really pleased with him for a while now, and that\u2019s why he\u2019s getting his opportunities through his training habits and performances in games. He scored a fantastic goal today.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cHe\u2019ll be disappointed with the result, but he needs to keep his head up because the games are coming thick and fast.\u201d<\/p>\n<article data-entity-type=\"node\" data-entity-uuid=\"06a82647-d85f-41fd-93ea-6e49c7004551\" data-embed-button=\"article_embed\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:node.tiny\" data-langcode=\"en\" data-entity-embed-display-settings=\"()\" class=\"embedded-entity u-spacing-down--xxl\">\n<article data-article-id=\"126920\" about=\"\/fixture\/under-18\/2026-Apr-25\/under-18-3-5-west-ham-united-u18-match-report\">\n<div class=\"article-card article-card--tiny card\" data-eq-pts=\"xsmall: 200, small: 550, medium: 640, large: 768\">\n<div class=\"card__content\">\n<p>\n         <span class=\"h6 article-card__subhead\">Read more<\/span>                             <\/p>\n<h3 class=\"article-card__title\" title=\"U18s report: Arsenal 3-4 West Ham United\"><span class=\"article-card__title-words\">  U18s report: Arsenal 3-4 West Ham United <\/span><br \/>\n          <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Looking ahead, Birchall emphasised the need for greater consistency.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI said it against Reading, we\u2019re just really inconsistent in terms of results at the minute.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cMy challenge to the group and to us as staff is: can we be more consistent? I definitely saw improvement in the approach and competitiveness compared to Reading.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt was just that, at times, we didn\u2019t manage transitions as well as we did in that game. So it\u2019s about consistency, in habits and in that competitive element.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe also need to build on performances like the clean sheet at Reading. Now, we\u2019ll be raring to go and win the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Birchall took positives despite our under-18s\u2019 late defeat against West Ham United in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}