Peter Taylor reflected on the positive aspects of England Under-20s' draw on Sunday night, after seeing Iraq hit back against his side in the closing stages to earn a point.
England were cruising to victory in Antalya after goals from Conor Coady and Luke Williams had put them in control but a 75th-minute penalty from Ali Faez gave Iraq hope and they got an unlikely draw thanks to Ali Adnan's stoppage-time equaliser.
Taylor said: "I was very pleased with the way that we started and pleased to score from a set piece but we needed to do more of the same. In the second half we got another goal but didn't defend as well as I would have liked.
"We can definitely do better, we're disappointed with the very late goal. Maybe we were unlucky because we had a man injured on that side of the pitch during that particular part of play.
"We may have been a touch tired, but we can do better than that on the final goal, when we let someone come inside. When tiredness gets into the bodies, it can get in the brain as well and you can then make the wrong decisions."
Many onlookers may be surprised by the result and the England camp will certainly be disappointed with a draw. But with six senior players in the Iraq team and a stubborn attitude towards the game throughout, Taylor knew what to expect.
He added: "We knew about Iraq before the game, we studied them and everything about them was as we thought. They have two lively wide players and good midfield players but we knew about that.
"You could say the substitutions affected us but players were on yellow cards and were getting tired. We've got three games in a short period of time, so we have to be very careful and make changes. There's been one team get a result, one team losing and two teams drawing, so the group is still very open."
England are next in action on Wednesday afternoon when they play the group favourites, Chile, in their second game.
