Braybrooke Sees The Positives As 2021/22 PL2 Season Concludes

Development Squad
04 May 2022
2 Minutes
Midfielder Sammy Braybrooke believes Leicester City can take plenty of encouragement from their 2021/22 campaign after the Premier League 2 Division 1 season came to a close earlier this week.

- Leicester City's Development Squad were beaten 3-2 at Crystal Palace Under-23s on Monday
- They currently sit seventh in Premier League 2 Division 1 after contesting their final fixture
- Sammy Braybrooke says the Foxes were unlucky not to take anything from the game
- He also looks to the future after a positive campaign across the Club's Academy set-up

The Foxes fell to a 3-2 defeat at Crystal Palace Under-23s on Monday, although they'll have to wait for results elsewhere to discover their final league position. At present, City's youngsters are seventh in the top tier of Under-23s football after a season which has presented an array of challenges.

Tawanda Maswanhise and Lewis Brunt found the net for Leicester at Crystal Palace Training Ground on Monday and, speaking afterwards, Braybrooke provided his assessment to LCFC TV. The Eagles eventually went down to nine men in south London, but held out for the three points.

"I think we're unlucky not to come away with anything," the 18-year-old England youth international said. "We dug deep, showed our quality, but we just couldn't really get that final touch to get it in the back of the net. On the whole, for most of the game, we dominated and we had a good performance. 

"All their goals came in spells where we probably weren't at it. They had a 10-minute spell where they got two goals, but we did well to get it back. We just couldn't really get that finishing touch in their box, although I thought we played very well. 

"It's very hard, there wasn't a lot of space in behind for people to run in. We created a lot of chances despite that. It was just about getting that final touch to score but unfortunately we just couldn't do it."

City have promoted several players from the Club's Under-18s team over the course of the campaign. A mid-table finish is an improvement on last term, while Leicester's Academy side reached the quarter-finals of the FA Youth Cup and the semi-finals of the U18 Premier League Cup.

These are encouraging signs for the whole Academy and Braybrooke is already excited by what could be achieved in 2022/23.

"I think it's been a brilliant season for us," he added. "It's a very young squad, probably one of the youngest in the league, I'd say. There's been a lot of scholars playing throughout the year and, on the whole, I think we can be very pleased with what we've done this year. Hopefully we can kick on next year.

"I'm looking forward to pre-season. I'll be looking to try and get as close to the first team as possible because that's obviously the end goal. I'll just keep working hard and see what happens next year."