With an FA Cup final to play as soon as Saturday and other big games to come, now is not the time to wallow in Wednesday night’s defeat against Arsenal was the message coming out of the match from Reece James.
The right wing-back was part of the side defeated 1-0 at the Bridge, a result that keeps the contest for a top-four place tight, but although the performance was lacking compared with recent ones by the team, he believes on another day it could have gone our way.‘We had a mistake leading to the goal and we did not take a few chances we had, we could have taken the lead and the game might have been different,’ James said.‘Arsenal are a good team and they are hard to break down but we had chances to score and we didn’t take them. We can’t dwell on it too long because we have a final coming up on Saturday so we need to get our heads up and bounce back.‘The loss is one loss and we can’t let the negativity go into another day and another training and another game. We need to accept it and move on and look forward to our upcoming games.’
Although Jorginho’s loose pass ultimately led to Arsenal’s winning goal, James says the team all together are taking the blame for a result which has focused their minds.‘We have massive games coming up,’ he emphasised. ‘We are in two finals and we need to take it step by step and game by game and keep on improving as a team and getting stronger.‘It would have been nice to win and build momentum going into the FA Cup final but maybe it was a little reality check before that game, and we need to get back on it in training and look forward to the game.’