Steve Bould says the u23s’ clean sheet against Southampton gives the whole team confidence, not just the defenders.
Steve Bould has been in the headlines a bit this week, with some reports that he or Freddie Ljungberg could be set to take over from Unai Emery if Arsenal decide to remove the Spanish head coach from his post mid-season.
For the time being, however, Bould remains in charge of the Arsenal u23s. He oversaw their second consecutive league win at the weekend, and their first clean sheet of the campaign, which he believes is an important thing for everyone.
“It’s very pleasing for me,” Bould said. “At half-time, we said we weren’t too bothered if we score two or three more, the important thing is that we keep a clean sheet.
“It’ll be great for their confidence, the whole team not just the back four. It was a good performance, in the second half they stepped it up a little bit and put us under a lot of pressure so it was a good performance.”
Despite the recent upturn in results and that first clean sheet, Bould still believes there’s room for improvement with the academy side. He highlighted where they were lacking after the game against Southampton.
“We did open them up a few times but the only disappointing thing was when we got to their final third, we didn’t quite create the chances that we should have done. We may need to work on our crossing this week and the areas to attack but we got there and that’s the pleasing thing.”
Arsenal sit third in the Premier League 2 table as things stand, one point behind Derby and two behind league leaders Chelsea, who have a game in hand.
The two front-runners play against each other in their next game on December 7th, so Arsenal have a chance to overtake at least one of them when they play Blackburn the same weekend.
In the meantime, Arsenal host Villarreal’s youth team in the Premier League International Cup on Wednesday night. For the full rundown on the format of the tournament, Arsenal’s group draw and match details, check out our article on the fixture.