Ollie Scarles is eager for West Ham United U18s to bounce back from a disappointing result at the weekend and show their very best in Thursday’s FA Youth Cup semi-final.
Kevin Keen’s young Hammers will welcome Southampton to London Stadium for a last four clash in the prestigious youth competition, with the winner playing either Arsenal or Manchester City away in the final.
The U18s had hoped to head into Thursday’s game having secured the U18 Premier League South title at the weekend, but a 4-3 home defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion put the celebrations on pause.
Scarles admitted the side were gutted about Saturday’s loss, in particularly the last-minute nature of the defeat to the Seagulls, but is optimistic the Hammers can channel that energy into being even better at London Stadium.
“We’re all devastated with the Brighton game,” Scarles told whufc.com. “I’m not even sure how to put it into words. The result didn’t go our way against Brighton.
“It would have been nice to have the league mathematically wrapped up before the FA Youth Cup game, but it wasn’t to be.
"All our focus now is going on Thursday’s match. We want to channel our disappointment from the Brighton game into being better in that one. We want to bounce back and show what we can do against Southampton.”
The Hammers had taken a first-half lead on Saturday thanks to Callum Marshall’s deflected strike, before Gideon Kodua headed in early in the second half to double the advantage. However, Brighton bit back with two quick finishes, courtesy of Bailey Smith and Remeiro Moulton, to level the fixture.
West Ham believed the win had been wrapped up when Lewis Orford scored on 87 minutes, but Brighton grabbed their third on 90+2 minutes through substitute Harry Lee’s well-taken finish, and then a fourth via Moulton's individual second.
“I genuinely thought we played decent football,” Scarles reflected. “We went two goals up just after half-time and looked like we had the game in our control, but we conceded two goals very quickly.
“They weren’t great goals to concede. As a team, we weren’t concentrating as much as we should have been.
“Lewis then scores a good goal late on and it’s looking like we’re going to do it today. We only needed a point to secure the league, so even a draw would have done it, but to concede twice so late on was so devastating. Now it goes into another league game, which is frustrating for us, given where we were in this one.”
The next league contest will put West Ham against Arsenal on Saturday 15 April, but all attention is now on Thursday’s FA Youth Cup match with Southampton.
The opportunity to get into the tournament final is one Scarles and his teammates are desperate to not pass up.
“I can’t even put it into words how massive the game at London Stadium will be,” he added. “At this stage, for us players, it’s probably going to be the biggest game a lot of us have played in so far.
“It’s going to be an amazing experience, but we have to make sure we’re not feeling like we were after the Brighton match at the end of Thursday.”
