Beaglehole Hopes Under-23s Build On Arsenal Triumph

- Steve Beaglehole hopes Leicester City's Development Squad can build upon the 2-1 success over Arsenal at the weekend

- The Foxes picked up their first Premier League 2 victory of 2017 over the Gunners to stay in touch in the league standings 

- City next face Nottingham Forest in the Premier League Cup and Beaglehole wants to see much of the same from his players

- Leicester cannot qualify for the next round of the competition whatever the result on Friday at the Impact Arena (7pm kick-off)

The Foxes were rewarded for working on their defensive solidity in the run-up to Sunday’s fixture at Holmes Park and, ahead of the trip to the Impact Stadium on Friday evening, Beaglehole wants to see much of the same from his players to help build some momentum.

Owing to previous results over the Christmas period, City know they are unable to qualify from the group stages of the Premier League Cup but both Beaglehole and assistant coach Ben Petty have said recently that they expect their performance levels to continue rising nonetheless. 

Providing an assessment of Forest’s qualities at Belvoir Drive this week, Beaglehole told LCFC TV: “They’ve done extremely well this season. I know their first team has struggled but the players they’ve brought into the first team, like Ben Brereton have impressed. 

“I had some great years at Nottingham Forest so I know what the club is about. They’re very strong on youth development. I would think it’ll be a younger team than what we played last time because Gary Brazil has promoted a few of them since he took charge. 

“Whatever team they put out, they’ll be a good side with technically good players who are well disciplined, so it’s going to be a very good, competitive game to assess our players in.” 

Beaglehole has been impressed with the effort and determination of his young players despite a succession of frustrating results of late and pointed to the FA Youth Quarter-Final against Chelsea as proof of their progression. 

While the Under-18s ultimately lost out to the Blues, seven-time winners and current holders of the competition, Beaglehole says he was pleased to see many of his players drop down to aid Trevor Peake’s men reach the latter stages this season. 

He added: “We’re improving and our results have not shown it at the start of the year. We’re a younger team and the players who played in the Youth Cup against Chelsea have shown how their experience in the Under-23s has helped their development.” 

Leicester defeated Arsenal 2-1 at Holmes Park in Premier League 2 on Sunday, despite the visitors having England international Danny Welbeck among their ranks, and Beaglehole hopes they can use that success as an extra motivation to spark an upturn in results. 

“There’s been a lot of good things happening,” he continued. “Sometimes you can’t always judge success purely on results. We’ve been making great strides and I hope we can build upon the Arsenal result. We’ve spoken about making good decisions early on in the matches. 

"The first 15 minutes are very important and that’s what has let us down in terms of results. We spoke about that ahead of the Arsenal match and we scored early on. Really, we should have made it 3-0 but we conceded late on and we were under the cosh a little bit. It was by no means a perfect performance but it was a very solid one.”