COACH Carl Fletcher felt Cherries under-21s’ win over their Arsenal counterparts had provided “a good benchmark” heading into their training camp in southern Spain.

Goals from Sam Surridge and Alex Dobre saw Cherries open their series of warm-up friendlies with victory against the Gunners at their London Colney training ground on Saturday.

Fletcher’s squad yesterday embarked on a five-day trip to Campoamor ahead of meeting Hamworthy Recreation at Magna Road on Tuesday (6.30pm).

“There are still areas we need to improve on and other areas we need to improve on a lot,” said Fletcher.

“But for where we want to be after the first week, it was a good exercise leading into going away to Spain.

“Football is such a fast-moving industry that if you stand still or do the same as you did last year, it is never going to be good enough.

“We always have to look to improve and get better every day, every training session and every game we play.

“Results aren’t the be-all and end-all in these games, we are looking for performances and certain key things we want to get out of them.

“We want to make sure we are pushing the players and they are pushing themselves as hard as they can.”