U21 Report: City 3 Barnsley 1

Substitute Harry Panayiotou and strike partner Tom Hopper both pounced in the final 15 minutes of a closely-fought contest, sealing a deserved win for a Foxes side that included youngsters, trialists and senior pros.

Gary Taylor-Fletcher, playing to top up match minutes following his recent recovery from injury, converted a cross from Hopper just four minutes in, giving City an early lead against a Barnsley side featuring senior players Lewin Nyatanga, Tomasz Cywka and Dale Jennings.

The Tykes struck back within eight minutes when forward Jordan Clark applied a tidy finish to a dangerous cross from the left – a goal that sent the sides in level at the break, despite Hopper forcing a good save from Christian Dibble with a header from James Pearson’s free-kick on the stroke of half-time.

City made changes at the break, but continued to look the more creative in attack – Hopper denied by the assistant’s flag on 51 minutes after rounding Dibble from substitute Joe Dodoo’s pass.

And the hosts regained the lead with 13 minutes to go with a brilliantly worked goal – substitute Zoumana Bakayogo breaking down the left and producing an inviting cross that Panayiotou converted with a well-directed diving header.

Hopper made sure of victory straight from the restart, raiding the Barnsley midfield before charging to the edge of the box and drilling left-footed across Dibble.

Development Coach Steve Beaglehole told LCFC.com: “It’s nice to get a game in on a week where we haven’t got a competitive match, because we have players that need games and we also wanted to look at some trialists.

“Barnsley always give you a good game as they have some good young technicians that work hard and we got the game we were looking for. They had some experience in their side too so it was a good test for our players.

“Winning games is a good habit to get into and we’ve had a good run of late. The development of players for the first team is obviously important, but it’s something Nick Eaden and I want to instil in this squad – as a unit, we want them to win games.”