Danny Cowley wants Lincoln to learn from Arsenal loss in FA Cup
Saturday 11 March 2017 22:25, UK
Lincoln boss Danny Cowley was left to reflect on what might have been after his side were beaten 5-0 by Arsenal in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
With the score at 0-0, winger Nathan Arnold had the non-league side's best chance in the first half as he cut inside to force Petr Cech into a decent save.
Lincoln restricted the Gunners to few opportunities until Theo Walcott broke the deadlock shortly before half-time.
Even though the hosts pulled clear after the break, Cowley believes his side should take inspiration from their first-half performance.
"I think we have to take a lot from our performance, particularly the fiist 45 minutes," he said.
"I thought that we restricted Arsenal to limited chances in that first 45 minutes, we had a good one of our own, fantastically well worked by Nathan Arnold, great save by Petr Cech.
"I think you know coming into the game that you're going to have limited moments, you want to try and take them. I thought Nathan did brilliantly for it.
"He worked it fantastically. He could have snatched at it but he showed the calmness just to step inside, the goal opened up. I thought it was a good strike...that goes in in the National League.
"For me, we have to be inspired by playing at this wonderful football stadium against world-class players, but more than that we have to make sure that we take loads of learning from this.
"We need to learn from this journey, not just from today but this journey. And if we can really, really learn and take something from playing against world-class players then we will be better footballers and players as a result."
Cowley also paid tribute to the Lincoln fans, with around 9,000 making the trip to the Emirates.
"I did our fans a massive disservice in the week because I said they were Premier League," he said. "They were much, much better than that. You saw world-class players play today in the Arsenal team but you also heard and witnessed world-class supporters because that's how good they were.
"Nine thousand of them out-sung 51,000 Arsenal supporters today and that is a fact."
