McSweeney: We’re Controlling Games Now

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McSweeney: We’re Controlling Games Now

Leon McSweeney believes our Under-21s have started to display much more dominance during matches, leading to a four-game winning streak in Premier League 2.

2025-03-05T13:30+00:00

by Sam Jones

Published

05 Mar, 2025

McSweeney: We’re Controlling Games Now

Leon McSweeney believes our Under-21s have started to display much more dominance during matches, leading to a four-game winning streak in Premier League 2.

Sam Jones

2025-03-05T13:30+00:00

McSweeney: We’re Controlling Games Now

Leon McSweeney believes our Under-21s have started to display much more dominance during matches, leading to a four-game winning streak in Premier League 2.

Sam Jones

2025-03-05T13:30+00:00

McSweeney: We’re Controlling Games Now

Leon McSweeney believes our Under-21s have started to display much more dominance during matches, leading to a four-game winning streak in Premier League 2.

Sam Jones

2025-03-05T13:30+00:00

McSweeney: We’re Controlling Games Now

Leon McSweeney believes our Under-21s have started to display much more dominance during matches, leading to a four-game winning streak in Premier League 2.

Sam Jones

2025-03-05T13:30+00:00

Catching up with coach Leon McSweeney after the Development Squad’s latest victory
Monday night’s success at home to Tottenham Hotspur was a fourth straight PL2 win
Confidence continues to grow, McSweeney says, as the young Foxes climb the table
There’s plenty more to come from this group before the end of the season, he adds

A 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at LCFC Training Ground on Monday evening, courtesy of first-half goals from Amani Richards and Logan Briggs, saw the young Foxes move up to eighth position in PL2, a reward for an impressive run of form of late.

“We set the players a challenge from the start of January to turn their dominance in possession into the scoreline,” City’s coach explained. “They’ve just taken it onboard and implemented into the games.

“The dominance in which we’ve controlled games with and without the ball has been particularly pleasing. The four wins are testament to that. Hopefully it will continue for the rest of the season. Confidence can be a factor at any level, but particularly in the Under-21s.

“Our big focus is always on the performance and then the results are a big product of that. For the most part of the season, the performances have been very consistent. Thankfully, we’ve started to turn that into being reflected in the results.

“The lads deserve all the credit for taking on board all of the information and they are the ones who go out and implement what we want to do.”

Bouncing back from exiting the Premier League Cup at the hands of Queens Park Rangers just three days earlier, it was a hectic few days for our Development Squad with PL2 fixtures sandwiched either side of the trip south. McSweeney explained how they are good preparation for what is to come.

“Three-game weeks are situations that we don’t have a lot of in Under-21s football,” the 42-year-old continued. “They will experience it a lot in the senior game, playing Saturday-Tuesday. It was really good to get an experience of that for the players and how they look after themselves between games and recovery.

“It was disappointing to go out to QPR and lose the game, but there were a lot of circumstances surrounding it, in terms of the pitch and the penalty that we conceded. In saying that, I don’t think we did enough to win the game.

Togetherness has been a key theme for the run of results.

“To follow that up with the performance on Monday against Tottenham was particularly pleasing. I thought the energy that the lads showed from start to finish meant they controlled much of Tottenham’s play without the ball.

“The players in the backline coped with the threat in behind. We did what we always do with the ball; we were progressive and we were devastating in the final third, particularly the goals we scored.

“The second one was a very well worked move and the only criticism was that we didn’t make it a more comfortable night by getting the third and the fourth, which we were well capable of and had good moments to do that.”

Scoring 15 in just the last four league fixtures, it was also pleasing to add stability at the other end of the pitch too, despite an influx of players returning to the squad in January, as well as losing several to loans and the First Team.

“Clean sheets at Under-21s level are very rare so that was a bonus,” he added.

“We respect the opposition but we also understand the talent that we have in the dressing room. We set the objective as outscoring the opposition and the lads have taken that on wholeheartedly.

“We’re blessed with some really talented young players who are able to express themselves. Thankfully they are backing it up with that ruthlessness in front of goal. That’s always the challenge to get cohesion in the group.

“We have players in the group from 15 years of age right through to 21. The culture and togetherness that we’ve created stands up in good stead from the work we’ve put in from pre-season really.

“We’ve got a good bunch of players who carry through those professional standards and look after the off-field stuff and make sure the dressing room is kept on point, particularly when we go through sticky periods of results.”

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