B team head coach Neil MacFarlane felt the side’s first half performance lacked intensity but was satisfied with the second half performance from his young side despite being beaten 4-1 by Newcastle United Under-21s on Saturday.

The B team headed to the north east in good form but weren’t quite at the races in the opening stages as the Magpies went 2-0 up inside 20 minutes. A much improved second half display where they pulled a goal back to make it 2-1 through Michael Olakigbe then saw more chances come and go for the side before United struck two more very late in the game.

Reflecting on the performance, MacFarlane explained: “In the second half I thought we played some really good football, similar to what we’ve been playing over the past few months. I think we’ve set such high standards within the group in the level of our performances and the level of the team and we’ve had some terrific results along the way.

“Today was a timely reminder that we can’t start games like we did today and I thought the first 10 or 15 minutes of the game we were far too passive and it wasn’t likes us in many respects. We grew into it but we were two goals down at that particular point and that can’t happen. I’m satisfied thereafter and we came into it towards the end of the first half with some terrific chances which we didn’t take. We then flooded the box even more in the second half, really had that desire and we were so on the front foot and got a goal back. We were the team in the ascendancy and had some unbelievable chances to equalise and I felt even if we’d done that, with what we’ve seen from this group before, we could have gone on to win the game but it wasn’t to be. The two late goals aren’t a fair reflection on the second half.”

Michael Olakigbe scored for Brentford B

The young Bees have been on a relentless schedule of late having had their Atlantic Cup campaign as well as their Middlesex Senior Cup quarter-final match earlier in the week. Despite that, MacFarlane says that it’s all part of the learning process for the players.

He continued: “It’s a no excuse culture here. No matter what gets thrown at us we deal with it and we have an incredible group of young players who have been through a really intense period at the Atlantic Cup, then to go to Wealdstone on Tuesday and find a way to get through. Here when it wasn’t going our way, and it’s never going to go your way all the time in football, we still found a way to manufacture a way back into the game at 2-1. We didn’t take those chances to score and the game got away from us.

Reacting to the two late goals, MacFarlane felt to concede them and make the score 4-1 ws harsh on his side but they’ll continue to learn from the match. He explained: “The fourth goal in particular is a world class strike from 35 yards which we couldn’t do anything about. The third one we will look at and improve upon, like the goals in the first half.

“We made a number of changes to the team today throughout the 90 minutes to make sure that the boys get important minutes. There were some really good performances within that. Some didn’t perform as they have done but some really did step up to the plate and it’s important that we keep the group really focused and full of minutes as we move forward to what is another busy period.

“We lost the goals in the game, but we did make a really good impact. We tweaked the formation at half-time and went 3-4-3 but it wasn’t so much the formation it was more the fact we were more aggressive, on the front foot, and showed more quality when we had the ball.”