Harry Forrester gave Aston Villa fans a glimpse of the future with a brace in last night's FA Youth Cup semifinal defeat to Chelsea.
Afterwards proud coach Tony McAndrew told avfc.co.uk: "I think the lads did the whole club proud. They've been fantastic all season and I'm bitterly disappointed for them.
"The second-half performance was really encouraging. We said at half-time that we didn't want to go out with a whimper. We didn't do that. We played some great stuff and I think we were unlucky to go down 3-2.
"Losing is a part of football you have to come to terms with. It's a terrible feeling when you lose games - we need to remember that and make sure we don't feel that way too often. The winning feeling is what it's all about.
"But as we say all the time, this is about learning. It's a learning curve for our young players. I think the crowd saw just how much this meant to the players.
"We wanted people to go away talking about our young players and I think they've definitely done that tonight."
He continued: "We made a great start with a great goal from Harry Forrester and he got another great goal in the second-half.
"Defensively, when it calms down a little bit, we'll look at things and we'd have to say the three goals we conceded were not great goals. So we'll sit down and discuss them.
"That said, two of the guys that made the mistake have been outstanding all season. They're distraught, so we need to be careful we don't make too much of things."
