- Development Squad manager Steve Beaglehole reflects on Wednesday's 4-2 defeat by Oldham Athletic
- The Foxes exited the Checkatrade Trophy at the Round 3 stage against Sky Bet League 1 opposition
- It was a result which brought their 19-game unbeaten run to an end, stretching back to September
- Beaglehole wants his side to recover at Sunderland in the Premier League International Cup next week
While Josh Knight and Ahmed Musa struck for City in Round 3 on Wednesday night, efforts from Craig Davies (2), Anthony Gerrard and Tope Obadeyi ended their EFL Trophy campaign at Boundary Park.
Beaglehole’s youthful side are still second in Premier League 2 and remain in contention in two other cup competitions, giving the Under-23s boss reasons to be cheerful.
“We were going to lose it at some stage,” he told LCFC TV. “The taste of winning and not getting beat is a habit and the dressing room is deflated because they’re not used to it.
“I think the manner which we lost it tonight was disappointing. We scored first against the run of play and I thought we may get the rub of the green tonight.
“Fair play to [Oldham], they went about it in a physical and determined way. They controlled the game really for large parts of the game.
“The biggest disappointment for me is that two of the four goals came from set-plays and you know how hard we work on defending set-plays.
“If we were going to have any chance of coming through tonight, I thought a big part of it would be set-plays.
“When you come to a big side like this, when you’ve got to play six Under-21s, the league teams fancy themselves at corners and free-kicks.”
However, Beaglehole was keen to stress just how much of an achievement it was for his side to go 19 games unbeaten across four competitions this season.
“As you’ve just said to me, I don’t want to harp on about the negatives in the performance, the run’s been fantastic,” he added.
“This competition has provided a fantastic opportunity for us to learn more about our players and see which players have that physical side at this level.
“It’s a great competition to find out about our players because, in some Under-23s games, you don’t have to deal with that onslaught of balls into the box.
“I’m really, really proud of the players. We’ve worked very, very hard and you can see the disappointment on their faces but we’ve got a game at Sunderland on Tuesday.”