A Great Way To Start, Says Barradell
- Leicester City’s Under-18s beat Norwich City 2-1 on Saturday
- The two Foxes goals came from Alfie Fisken and Reece Evans
- Coach Adam Barradell assessed the team’s performance
- He felt it was a strong display to open the new campaign
Alfie Fisken and Reece Evans were both on the scoresheet at Lotus Training Centre on Saturday to ensure the young Foxes kicked off their U18 Premier League South campaign in a positive manner.
“There were lots of good individual performances in the first game,” the coach commented to LCFC.com. “It’s always difficult travelling there on the day and we had a tough first game.
“We had to weather the storm in the first 20-25 minutes, but I thought we defended really well throughout the game and although they had a lot of the ball at times, they didn’t create too many clear-cut chances, which was pleasing.”
Hosting Brighton & Hove Albion Under-18s at LCFC Training Ground on Saturday (11am kick-off), Barradell wants to harness the momentum gained from that opening day victory and build on the progressive work done over the summer.
He explained: “We’re still working on the team idea and there’s some work to do in possession, so some development in that area, but it’s a completely different team to last season. We’ve had a great pre-season.
“We’ve been away to the Lake District and Scotland. We’ve spent a lot of time together as a squad, integrating the Under-16s that have come through the system and into the group and getting to know each other as players and staff.
“It’s been really good to form those bonds that will hopefully help the group develop as we go further into the season.
“We’re really looking forward to the game (against Brighton). It's the first game at home in the league and we want to continue the work that we did on Saturday and build on that performance and hopefully get another positive performance and result with more individual positives.”
City’s Under-21s also began the season with a win, defeating Derby County 2-1 in Seagrave on Monday. Barradell watched on as several graduates from the Under-18s played their part in the success.
The 37-year-old added: “It was great to see so many of the lads who have come through the scholarship programme play and to see Amani [Richards] and Zach Booth get on the scoresheet. We watched the game as a whole group, so all the Under-18s were there and it was really pleasing.
“It caps off a great week for the Academy with the three boys Wanya [Marcal-Madivadua], Kasey [McAteer] and Jakub [Stolarczyk] in and around the first team and making competitive debuts. It’s great for all the other Academy boys and scholars to see that the opportunities are there for them and they’ve got to take that.”