Arsenal coach Steve Bould was delighted with the performance of midfielder Jay Emmanuel-Thomas in last night's 3-1 FA Youth Cup victory at Tottenham.

Emmanuel-Thomas struck in injury-time to seal the win and Bould told arsenal.com: "He can drive you mad sometimes but he's a terrific talent with a wonderful left foot and he scores a lot of goals. It's quandary sometimes where to play him and we've been trying to convince him to play centre half believe it or not but he's having none of that.

"The players do get psyched up, sometimes a bit too much. We have to calm them down a bit. But to experience this is the closest they will get to first-team football with the pressure that's on, especially with it being live on TV.

"The great thing about the competition is that we see who handles the pressure and who can maybe step up to the next level. You could not buy this kind of experience for them."