AcademyBarry Lewtas on 'tough' Palace cup loss and Brighton challenge

The young Reds were eliminated on Friday night after a goal they felt involved a foul, with Victor Akinwale appearing to make contact with Billy Koumetio before running through to score.

Lewtas’ charges, who also saw two late penalty appeals for handball waved away against the Eagles, must now dust themselves down quickly.

They return to action by hosting Brighton & Hove Albion at the Academy on Monday afternoon – a game you can watch live on LFCTV and LFCTV GO, with kick-off set for 2pm BST.

Liverpoolfc.com caught up with U21s head coach Lewtas to reflect on the cup clash with Palace and preview the visit of Brighton...

On the loss to Palace…

That was a tough one to take. We’ve probably had a few tough decisions this year, the game against Sporting recently and a few others that you kind of gloss over because you win those games, like when we went down to 10 men at Arsenal. That’s something we can’t control but I thought the goal, it’s a tough one to take. The lads are devastated and they feel they have been on the wrong end of one tonight, and it can happen, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

For us, we can only control what we can control. We knew how tough it would be because of the style of play we were up against. We had a feeling they would run out of gas in the second half, which they did, but they defended ever so well in and around the box. We just couldn’t find our way through and when we did the ball just went the wrong side of the post. We are a little bit sorry with ourselves that we didn’t score but we’ve got to take responsibility for parts of our game. I can’t be too critical, though, because I thought there were big parts of our game that were excellent. It just didn’t go our way.

On feeling his players deserved a lot more on the night…

It was a real shame. I thought we dealt with everything Crystal Palace put on us really well. Sometimes things are beyond your control and you don’t get the rub of the green. I don’t know how much more we could have done, but at the same time if you don’t put the ball in the back of the net that is a tough one as well, but overall I thought the lads were excellent.

On how beneficial it could be for the team playing in such a physical game against a tough opponent…

There is an element of physicality and size and I thought we dealt with it extremely well. In the first half, we probably just turned the ball over too many times, which allowed them to get in behind us. In the second half we had so much more control and didn’t give them the chance to go long. That was pleasing but fair play to them, they are a tough side to play against, and they had a back seven at one point. I think if we had got one goal then there was only one team that was going to go on and win it, but it wasn’t to be and that’s football.

On a quick turnaround with a Premier League 2 game against Brighton on Monday afternoon…

That’s the real tough one as well because this game against Palace got pushed to the Friday night after the international break. It wasn’t ideal timing and now we go again on Monday. We’ll be ready to go again. Yes, the lads are obviously gutted, but we are playing some fantastic football and the lads just want to get back out there and play. We’ll be ready to give it a good go against a good Brighton side.

• Watch the U21s v Brighton live on LFCTV and LFCTV GO on Monday