Injury blow: Smalling was taken off after cutting his head

Pearce made Scott Parker captain and applauded his contribution. 'He is well respected in the group and he is an extremely unselfish player,' said the manager. 'All the players just needed a bit more belief that they could go and hurt opponents of this ability. A bit of know-how or nous would have seen the game out. There was a slight lack of belief.

'Once we got ourselves back in the game we are disappointed we have been beaten. It's disappointing to lose but the exercise was to learn from it.

'We came up against an outstanding side and the exercise will stand our young players in good stead.'

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