Darren Ferguson felt Rovers were unfortunate to be beaten by an experienced Arsenal side in the third round of the Carabao Cup.
Theo Walcott’s first half goal was enough to give the Gunners the win at the Emirates Stadium, but Ferguson was proud of his team.
“I thought it was a very good performance and all the credit must go to the players for that. We were up against it for the opening 25 minutes, which can happen in these sort of games, but we stuck at it which is what we needed to go,” he said.
“We reacted really well to going behind and it was important for us that we didn’t concede again before half time. We had a young team out there, the average age would have been in the early 20’s and that shows that the club has a bright future.”
With a number of positives to take from the game, the manager is hopeful they can produce a similar performance when they travel to face Plymouth Argyle in Sky Bet League One this weekend.
“We were very unlucky not to get the equaliser, Matty Blair and Liam Mandeville both had good chances towards the end so we were slightly unfortunate,” he added.
“We got into good areas at times and were a bit reluctant to have a shot at goal which is disappointing as we work on it a lot in training.
“The players have to take confidence from the game, if there was any doubt about the belief then I think that has been answered with the performance we’ve shown against an experienced Arsenal team.”
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