We’ll Look To Move On Quickly, Says Barradell
- Leicester City Under-18s beaten 3-0 by West Ham United on Saturday afternoon
- The Hammers scored three second half goals at LCFC Training Ground
- Coach Adam Barradell assessed the defeat while speaking to LCFC.com
- City sit eighth in the U18 Premier League South Division
- The Foxes travel to London this weekend to face league-leaders Chelsea
A three-goal margin was the difference in Seagrave last weekend as West Ham, who are currently chasing the league title, scored three without reply in the second period.
Sharing his thoughts on the game, Barradell was disappointed not to seize some big moments against the London outfit although he did commend the first-half performance from the hosts at LCFC Training Ground.
“I thought the game was very even, especially in the first half,” the coach explained. “I thought we had some very good opportunities that we didn’t capitalise on, but very even in the first half.
“Early on in the second half, it was quite a freak goal, and we didn’t recover well from that, and they scored straight afterwards and late on in the game scored another one.
“We're disappointed with the result, but in terms of the performance, I thought it was much better in terms of the week before (a defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion), but we didn’t come out with the result we wanted.
“We’ll look to move on quickly. We’ve got another game coming this Saturday against top of the league and we’ll look to bounce back and perform as well as we did in the first half.”
Goalless at the break, the Hammers came out firing and found themselves two goals in four minutes when Tyron Akpata and Elisha Sowunmi broke through City’s rearguard action.
Following a positive half-time team talk, he was frustrated to see the game get out of sight but hopes the young group will learn from a match against one of the league’s best.
“As staff we felt quite comfortable in the game,” the coach admitted. “We were 0-0 at half-time, and going into that second half, we thought we could impact them more, we thought we could show more quality in the final third than we did.
“But overall, I think West Ham only had three penalty box entries in the second half but unfortunately scored three goals. As a coach on the sideline, it’s about reacting to those goals that go in, in quick succession. How can we change and tweak things to get back into the game.
“We changed shape which allowed us to change momentum and have a good impact on the game, but we couldn’t get that goal we were looking for. So, we’ll look to learn from this one as a group and recover well from it.”
The Foxes’ final run-in starts with a trip to Cobham Training Centre to take on Chelsea this Saturday (12pm BST kick-off), also challenging for top spot, and the coach outlined his aims for the next three fixtures.
Barradell added: “I’ve said it before, we’ve got to be better in both boxes as a group. We’re doing quite well in terms of build-up and progressing. In the final third, we’ve got to be more ruthless in front of goal.
“We get ourselves into good goalscoring positions, but we’ve got to take our chances. At the other end, although we are limiting teams to touches in our box, we’ve got to be ruthless, aggressive and make sure we’re not conceding sloppy goals.
“When you do come up against team that are top of the league, what we do find is that they are ruthless in both boxes and that’s why they’re at the top at the moment.
“We set a target in terms of performances. We want to finish the season as well as we can in terms of performances on the pitch but results-wise, we want to finish in the top six which is achievable. If we don’t, then we want to be as close to that as possible.”