\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n As much as our young Gunners will be disappointed to see their positive run come to an end, our under-21s head coach was keen to point out that his team had done well to get into such a strong position after a difficult start to 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what we just said to the players, we had a real set back across the whole phase, under-18s against City and us against Liverpool, and we had to say look, this is where if you want a career in the senior environment, you have to respond, and you have to go on a run.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did that, and we\u2019ve done that with a young team, which has been brilliant. We\u2019ve not always played well in that (run) so we\u2019re not going to get too high because when we did play well, and we got results, we also said we\u2019ve got to get better.<\/p>\n \u201cTonight, we\u2019ve lost, so we\u2019re going to stay calm, and the challenge now is next week, we play Norwich, we\u2019ve got to respond. We want to get a result and the challenge to the players is we need to go on another run.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we do that we\u2019re going to finish the season really strongly.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n While Max was disappointed to see our unbeaten run come to an end, he noted that there were positives to take from the game.<\/p>\n \u201cI think any player wants to win games, and any player wants to be in those games at the end of the season that are exciting, and there\u2019s something on it.<\/p>\n \u201cFor development for our players, we want that, so part of the message we just said there as staff was let\u2019s go on a run now, let\u2019s finish as high as we can.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve only lost two games this season at home in the PL2, one of them was obviously the first game of the season against Fulham and then now. So we\u2019ve done pretty well here.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think the challenge can be, and the opportunity, win as many games as possible, go on another run, try and finish in the top eight. That gives you a home tie, and then we fancy ourselves against anyone if that\u2019s the case.\u201d<\/p>\n Another positive to come from tonight was the return of Max Dowman after his spell on the sidelines.<\/p>\n Max featured in a competitive game for the first time in 2026, playing 45 minutes for Max Porter\u2019s side, and experienced an injury recovery for the first time in senior football.<\/p>\n \u201cMax, he\u2019s always been a player that\u2019s been kicked,\u201d Porter said on the injury, \u201cIt was a very bad tackle unfortunately in the game against Manchester United that led to it, so this is, like you said, it\u2019s a bit of a journey for him, understanding his body, going through a rehab process.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully also it gives him that little bit of fire that when you are missing football, how much you want to get back out there and how much you appreciate it, which knowing Max, I\u2019m sure it will.\u201d<\/p>\n With Max back in action for our under-21s, Porter feels that the midfielder will only push on and get stronger as he looks to return to first team action in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cI think tonight you saw that he needed minutes, and he\u2019ll only get stronger from here, going through this now will be nothing but hopefully a really good moment for his development even though he\u2019s missed football.<\/p>\n \u201cSo yeah, we\u2019re glad to have Max back, hopefully he can push and if he needs minutes with us, great, if not hopefully he can contribute to the first team in a really exciting finish to the season.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Max Porter praised the work rate and attitude of our under-21s as our five-match unbeaten run came to an end with a 1-0 defeat to Ipswich. The Tractor Boys took … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} U21s highlights: Reading 1-4 Arsenal <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n U21s report: Arsenal 0-1 Ipswich Town <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n Arteta on Havertz, Dowman and Gyokeres <\/span>
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n