Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper felt defeat at Arsenal was a missed chance.
Forest lost 2-1 on Saturday, though pushed Arsenal hard late on.
I'm frustrated with the first half," Cooper said. Arsenal are a really good team and have strengthened from last year.
Lots of our team are still getting up to speed. It was always going to be a really tough challenge.
At half-time, we questioned ourselves in terms of competing. We needed to back ourselves in the duels.
They dominated and had territory. We were always going to have to play that mid to low block, fast attack game, which we had a lot of success with at the end of last season.
What we didn't do quite right was compete strong enough within the duels and show enough quality on the turnovers. Arsenal are excellent, but we had a real chance in the first half with Brennan.
Second half, we showed a bit more quality and belief that we belong at this level. It then leaves a feeling of what might have been in a game which was really tough."
