Lewis Shipley: We did the best we could with 10 men, but it hurt us as lot

Under-18s captain Lewis Shipley said being reduced to 10 men cost them in their Premier League Cup game match against Brighton & Hove Albion.

The Canaries lost the match 3-0, but were only trailing by a single goal when one of their players was shown a straight red card. The player, who has only recently stepped up from the under-16s team, misjudged the flight of the ball and then brought down his opponent who got the wrong side of him and was going through on goal.

However, Shipley says the red card was harsh.

“For me it was not a red card,” he said. “I thought there were people covering around but he just tried to fight the player too much. It is something he will learn from, but I thought he was excellent for the other games and I can’t really fault him.

“It is something we are not used to at under-18s, because sending-offs are very rare. It is nothing we have really worked on, and we ended up with people playing out of position and we did the best we could with 10 men, but it hurt us as lot and we didn’t really have the opportunity to play.”

Speaking about the goals, the team conceded, Shipley added: “A couple of the goals came from mistakes, and you expect that at under-18s. We are still developing as players. It is something we can look through, but I am pretty confident that they are just mistakes and the overall team is alright. We will look back at the game and we will learn from it like we do every week.”