Northampton Town Under 18s Coach Shane Goddard was disappointed after his side lost 2-0 at home to Stevenage in the EFL Youth Alliance League South East on Saturday morning.
Speaking after the match, Goddard said: “It’s disappointing and frustrating because we trained really well all week and we weren’t at the races.
“The reality is that we can be as good as we want to be in training, but we’ve got to turn up in games and perform on a matchday.
“Technically, our standards were not where they need to be, and we caused our own problems and downfall.
“It was a disappointing performance and result, but credit to Stevenage, they played some good football and made life difficult for us.
“We’ve got to meet the standards that the boys have got to meet if they want to have a career in the game.
“It’s still early in the season, so we’re not going to get too low because of a couple of losses, but if we want to hit the standards and heights that we know we’re capable of we need to improve our performances.
“It’s a learning curve, and we need to hit higher standards.”
The youth team travel to MK Dons on Saturday. Jack Connor scored four goals in a 6-1 win when the sides last met.