Freddie Ljungberg might well have felt entitled to lose his cool with his Arsenal players just as they had lost it against Cheltenham Town moments before. But instead the Under-21 manager simply recalled one of many lessons from Arsene Wenger and reminded himself that, at this level, learning must often take priority over points.

There certainly were plenty of lessons in for the young guns at Whaddon Road - or the Jonny-Rocks Stadium as it is so inelegantly branded - as League Two’s second-from-bottom side hammered the U21s 6-2 in the Checkatrade Trophy.

The writing was on the wall for Arsenal when Robbie Burton was shown a red card for a despairing challenge on the excellent Chelsea loanee Jacob Maddox. Chris Clements slammed in the resulting free-kick .

From then on the visitors were largely chasing shadows, though the sterling work of Tyreece John-Jules in scoring just before the break and winning a penalty for Charlie Gilmour kept them in the contest at least until late goals from Kelsey Mooney and Ryan Broom added an emphatic edge to proceedings.

Ljungberg labelled it the sort of defeat that might have brought “screaming and shouting” from a first team manager but he was keen to take a different approach with his young players.

“First of all I told them, quite sternly, that that’s what happens in a game like this,” he told Standard Sport. “Then I tried to explain to them a little the mistakes we’d made.

“But often after a game - maybe I was told by Arsene a bit - [you realise] you don’t always see the correct things on the bench. Before I go and point fingers at players I like to go and see the videos because there could be different angles.

“I like to be clear if I want to make a point to someone. I try to be calm after games and have a discussion 24-48 hours later.”

Ljungberg said he had chosen not to shut up shop after going a man down early on, adding: “We said on the bench if it’s 2-0 down in a cup game we’re going to go for it and try to win. We won’t sit back and close the shop and lose 2-0.

"What’s the point? What will they learn from that? We tried to go for it and of course that led to a big score but I thought it was better for the boys to learn that way.”

After suffering just his second defeat in charge of the Arsenal youth setup, and a first since the opening week of the season, Ljungberg (below) was as downcast as he had ever been during his Gunners playing career.

However tomorrow may at least bring cause for optimism for the U21 and U23 manager, who will see four of his players, Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock and Julio Pleguezuelo, join Unai Emery for the EFL Cup tie against Blackpool.

Nketiah rose to prominence in that competition last season, turning a shock defeat to Norwich into a victory with a brace, whilst Smith Rowe has firmly established himself in Emery’s plans after impressing in pre-season.

“Of course we’re proud,” Ljungberg said. "The whole academy is proud. Nothing really fazes him. He’s always calm and works really hard in training. He takes steps and steps. I think Zech was in the squad at Crystal Palace, he had never been before.

“For us that’s great news of course. It’s harder in games but that’s what we get judged on, trying to get them up there. It’s not just me, there have been many, many coaches over many years who have put hours into coaching them so well done everyone.”