Mistakes made the difference as Norwich City's under-21s were beaten 5-3 by Manchester United at Carrow Road, according to boss Alan Neilson.
The young Canaries took an early lead through Errol Mundle-Smith, but found themselves 4-1 behind by the 70th minute, a rapid double putting the visitors in command early in the second half.
That gave City a mountain to climb late on, with goals from Dan Ogwuru and Finley Welch enough to give them hope but not to earn a point.
Neilson put that down to mistakes from his side rather than United's quality, telling the Pink Un post-match: "We made mistakes. Playing against the top teams or good teams, you'll concede goals when you give it away.
"In spells we were really good, in spells not so good, and there were some spells where we've probably got to defend better than we did, we conceded five goals.
"We were leading in the first half, and then conceded a goal that we'll look back at and think we could have done a lot better. In the second half we've got to come out on the offensive, and we've got to defend better."
More than 6,000 tickets were sold for the game, the side's second in four days after Tuesday's win over Sparta Prague. Neilson believes his charges will have taken a lot from their experience at the club's home stadium, and knows what a privilege it's been to have taken charge there twice in such short order.
"It's fantastic, even on a night like this," he continued. "[The fans] have gone away having seen a great game of football, eight goals.
"We wish, of course, that we'd got the result, but we'll have to learn from it and look forward to the next game at Reading.
"This is my tenth season now, and it's the first time we've had a double-header at Carrow Road, two games it one week. It's been really, really good."
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