Jarred Harvey | We are disappointed but we showed the strides we have made

Coach Jarred Harvey felt the level of performance Swansea City Under-18s produced in their FA Youth Cup defeat to Southampton underlined the progress they are making.

The Swans suffered a 2-0 loss against their Premier League 2 opponents at the Joma High Performance Centre to exit at the third-round stage of the prestigious competition.

The goals came in the second half, with the Saints opening the scoring from a set-piece through Abdulhalim Okonola-Matthews, after Swansea’s Caio Ifans was shown a straight red card.

The visitors went on to seal the victory in stoppage time from another set-piece, which ended in an own goal from Brogan Popham.

But the hosts gave as good as they got against the Saints, and Harvey felt that was a contrast to when they had faced Fulham in the fourth round last term and suffered a 5-0 loss.

“Obviously the result is not what we were aiming for, the week we had in preparation for the game had been excellent,” said Harvey.

“But you only had to look at the way Southampton celebrated at the end to know how hard the game was for them.

“We did well in limiting the number of chances they had, but we did not take our own chances when they came unfortunately.

“We matched them on a lot of levels, and I thought there was a night and day difference here to how we performed against Fulham in this competition, where we did not get near them.

“That was not the case this time, it shows how far we have come and where the players are and what we expect of them.

“I think the players can be proud of themselves for the desire, effort and quality we showed at times.

“We played some good stuff, we stayed in the game, we had a structure and we started the second half so well, it was just unfortunate with the sending off. Caio is a terrific player and it’s just an unfortunate situation and as a club we will rally round him.

“But even with 10 men we had chances and caused them problems, we were brave and did not sit off. It just wasn’t to be our night.”