England Under-21s captain Jordan Henderson says failure to keep the ball cost them in opening defeat England's performance was described as "awful" by their coach Stuart Pearce, who highlighted some poor distribution. Henderson agreed, saying: "Italy did quite well, kept the ball well at times. I still feel we could play a bit better and keep the ball a bit better. We tried to press them high up in the first 20 minutes or so, but it wasn't really working. They were picking us off a little bit. We went back and went a little deeper, which I felt worked a little better. They found it hard to break us down and then we tried to get them on the counter. The one positive was a lively display on the counter by Nathan Redmond, who kept running at Italy's defence. "I thought he was brilliant,"" added Henderson. He got on the ball, took players on and was a real threat for us. Hopefully he can carry on do that for us in the next game (against Norway on Saturday). England were unhappy that Craig Dawson's header was ruled out. "It might have been a different story if our goal was allowed in the second half,"" said Henderson. There was no reason why it shouldn't have been, but that is football. You've got to get on with these things. Then we conceded at the other end. Overall, it is disappointing but we have to pick ourselves up now for the next two games. Afterwards, Pearce told the players: "Just to keep on going, make sure we do our recovery right." Henderson believes England can recover. "We can't get too disheartened about the performance and the result,"" said the Liverpool midfielder. We've just got to go from here, stay positive and hopefully we can get a good result against Norway. It is a big opportunity for us to go against Norway and get a good result and Israel after that. We've still got a long way to go, still have to remain confident that we can achieve what we want to achieve."" Defeat to Norway means England are out.