A Great Feeling Around The Group, Says Barradell
- Leicester City’s Under-18s beat Southampton 2-0 last weekend
- It was a second successive victory for the young Foxes
- Adam Barradell spoke about the positivity of recent results
- A trip to Crystal Palace is up next this Saturday (12pm kick-off)
The young Foxes defeated Southampton 2-0 on Saturday to back up another impressive 2-0 triumph at home to Brighton & Hove Albion a week earlier. Focusing on the Saints victory, goals from Amani Richards – his seventh of the league season – and Josh King, sealed a third win in four games.
“I was delighted with individuals and the collective on Saturday,” Barradell told LCFC.com. “I thought they showed a real collective desire to carry out the game plan that the staff and players had put together, a real desire to compete and some real quality in transition moments with the ball.
“There were some standout performances. I thought Amani Richards was a real threat again, scoring and assisting. Josh King, an Under-16s, scored his first goal for the Under-18s. The fact that we had three Under-16s starting is testament to the work that has gone on through the pathway.
“There’s some real good credit to the staff and coaches for the work that is going on there. Kevon Gray made his debut for the Under-18s at centre-back. I thought he performed really well and so did Bobby Amartey, who is a first-year scholar, playing central midfield.
“He had an excellent game. There’s some real positives around the group but also collectively. There are things to work on but the all-round performance to keep a clean sheet and score two goals again is really pleasing.”
Moving up to eighth in U18 Premier League South, Leicester are now seven points clear of the bottom of the table and are looking upwardly mobile as the season moves towards a conclusion.
City’s Under-18s coach continued: “We looked at it after the Youth Cup and we were really disappointed with the level of performance that we put out that night and, as a group and staff, we did some real soul searching in terms of we needed to do more, both individually and as a group.
“There’s always an eye to get Under-16s into the Under-18s after Christmas and that’s what we’ve looked to do. It’s a real good run from now until the end of the season. Obviously, the target is to keep pushing on and getting players into the Development Squad.
“I hope to see more individuals make debuts and push into that squad and also keep us as competitive as we can in the league fixtures, as we have done since Christmas.”
A trip to south London comes next on Saturday (12pm kick-off) as City face a Crystal Palace side sitting second in the standings. The visitors will enter with confidence, though, given recent results.
Barradell added: “Crystal Palace is always a challenging game in terms of travelling on the day, going down to London and they are a strong team who will cause us problems. But we’ll be focused on ourselves.
“We’ve carried out the game plan extremely well in the last few weeks and we’ll go down there really positively and look to put our style on the game, rather than worry too much about what they are going to do to us.
“I think the boys are in a real positive mindset at the moment, so we’re looking forward to the game. It’s great when you get that feeling around the group where you can’t wait for the next fixture and that’s what we have at the moment.
“Hopefully we can carry on the level of performance that we’ve shown in the last few weeks.”
All times GMT.