Sporting Bengal United manager Imrul Gazi was pleased to hand a number of youngsters another chance to impress in their 1-1 draw with Clapton.

East London Advertiser: Action from the Essex Senior League derby between Sporting Bengal United and Clapton at Mile End Stadium (pic Tim Edwards)Action from the Essex Senior League derby between Sporting Bengal United and Clapton at Mile End Stadium (pic Tim Edwards) (Image: Archant)

Zakariya Muhammed opened the scoring for the Tons before Bengal captain Rokib Choudhury levelled the scoring at the Mile End Stadium to earn them both a point.

The result means Bengal are now three games unbeaten in the Essex Senior League since Choudhury took over the reigns as skipper following some key players departing the club.

"Disappointed to not get three points, but pleased the team is coming together, and more importantly I'm happy that we're giving game time to youngsters as well," Gazi said.

"My own son Raul Gazi played his 13th game of the season and at 17-years-old that's invaluable experience.

East London Advertiser: Action from the Essex Senior League derby between Sporting Bengal United and Clapton at Mile End Stadium (pic Tim Edwards)Action from the Essex Senior League derby between Sporting Bengal United and Clapton at Mile End Stadium (pic Tim Edwards) (Image: Archant)

"Adil Haque as well in midfield, they're two products of our Sporting Bengal youth teams, so players are coming through the ranks which from my perspective is a massive plus for us."

The long-serving boss also believes it was always going to be a tough test as the Tons were an unknown after constant changes throughout the campaign.

"They're a good team and they're going to give a lot of teams problems," he admitted.

"It was a totally different team to the one that we played at the beginning of the season, we played them once in the cup and they beat us in the league, but they're now a very different side.

"They've obviously had some management changes; they're a very young team, peaceful and great going forward.

"We started really slowly, we had a young team out ourselves as we had key players out, and I think we played four under-18s in the squad and three actually played.

"It was again a game that we should have won; we created so many chances in the second-half, but were 1-0 down at half-time.

"To not come away with all three points felt like two points dropped even at the end of the game the Clapton management team were shocked that we didn't win.

"I always like to take the positives out of everything and the main thing is that it is three games undefeated.

"At some point we're going to take these chances and score a lot of goals in one of these games coming up."