Norwich City's new development chief Mark Robson insists the young Canaries are on the right track after Tuesday night's Premier League Under-21 Cup exit to a well-drilled Arsenal outfit at Carrow Road.

Benik Afobe's close range first half finish eased the Londoners into the last 16 of the national competition, but Steve Gatting's side were indebted to visiting keeper Matt Macey, who denied City on several occasions in a frantic finale. Jacob Murphy's goalbound effort was acrobatically tipped over in what proved the pick of a series of impressive stops from Macey and Robson admitted the hosts must be more ruthless in the future.

'I thought we had a couple of really good opportunities at the end and it was the final ball that let us down,' he said. 'We had situations where there were boys free in the box and with a roll across the goal it might have been a tap-in. That final third is something I will be looking at because we have such good pace to get into those areas and once we get that right it should shine through. I was disappointed for the boys because they have worked extremely hard and we played very well. I saw a lot of the things we had worked on in training and but for that final ball in the last third and their keeper making some excellent saves we could have got something from the game.'

Robson felt his squad had set a high standard in his first match in charge since leaving a coaching post with the FA.

'They have been excellent these last two weeks I have worked with them and I said to them after the game if that is how they perform week in, week out then I will be happy,' he said. 'I was really pleased with the performance. I've seen or two things that have popped up in this game we can work on, but the attitude was outstanding, the effort was first class. We asked them to play with a good tempo and to press Arsenal and we did that. At times I felt we played some fantastic football and like I say but for our final ball it could have been a different story.'