McFarlane: "I don't think we were ourselves" in FA Youth Cup defeat

Saints were beaten 2-1 at Vicarage Road by a resolute Watford side, who booked their place in the semi-finals with a goal in either half from Nickson Okosun and Zavier Massiah-Edwards.

Nick Oyekunle had equalised in the first half to bring the scores level at the break, but it was the hosts who advanced to the final four of the competition.

"It's a really disappointing night." McFarlane admitted, "I think the biggest disappointment isn't losing the game, I don't think we were ourselves.

"We've been really good this year, we've had a certain way we wanted to play, we've been really brave on the ball and today we just looked like the occasion got to us a little bit too much."

Saints were caught out by an early opening goal and a momentary lack of concentration for the second, but over the course of 90 minutes it was the home side who also saw the game out to progress, as McFarlane assessed.

"Full credit to Watford, they made it difficult and yeah, they deserved to win - they were the better side on the night.

"I thought [Watford] were really well organised, they had a game plan, and we started quite nervy and never seemed to really feel our way into the game.

"I felt like we just took the easy option to go over the top too often instead of playing through our midfielders or playing into the top line's feet and I just think it made the game a little bit more chaotic.

"I said to the lads inside, we have to be ourselves in any environment - the way we want to play has to remain consistent.

"Hopefully they learned from that, playing in front of a big crowd against a really highly motivated, high quality team and we need to learn to adapt and still be ourselves in those tough moments."

Saints couldn't find a way past a stubborn Watford side. (Photos: Harry Murphy/Getty Images)

The result ends Saints' cup run, but the young squad are still fighting near the top of the Under-18s Premier League; they currently sit second in the table with just four defeats in their 17 games played so far.

As McFarlane is set to make the step up to lead the Under-21s following upward internal movement in the Academy, he highlighted how important it is that the Under-18s continue their positive campaign when the dust settles on a frustrating evening.

"There's so much still to play for, for the Under-21s and the Under-18s, it is still youth development football - even though the FA Youth Cup has a different feel to it, we can't let the disappointment of tonight derail our season.

"There's so many lads training with the first team, potentially close to making debuts or whatever that looks like, breaking into the Under-21s, so there's still loads to play for.

"We just have to learn from this and try to get over it as quickly as we can now."