FA Youth Cup Progression Pleases Barradell
- Leicester City's Under-18s beat Exeter City Under-18s 2-1 in Tuesday's FA Youth Cup Fourth Round tie at St James Park
- Goals from Wanya Marcel-Madivadua and Kian Pennant secured the young Foxes' place in the last 16 of the competition
- Adam Barradell was delighted with the way the team responded to Exeter's extra-time equaliser by producing a late winner
- He hopes City can use their current form to continue competing on three fronts and finish the season strongly
Following on from a comfortable victory over Sheffield Wednesday in round three, Exeter City provided a stern test of the young Foxes' credentials, taking the game into extra-time before the visitors finally came at on top at St James Park.
Having netted a brace in the previous round, Wanya Marcal-Madivadua broke the deadlock after 98 minutes and although Michael Lilley soon levelled for the hosts, Kian Pennant, who also scored twice against Wednesday, was on hand to fire home the winner.
"We are delighted to get through," Under-18s coach Barradell told LCFC.com. "Ultimately we want to go as far as we can in the cup competitions that we're in, the FA Youth Cup and the Premier League Cup.
"We're still in both at the moment, so as staff and a group of players, we want to achieve good things in both trophies and do as well as we can.
"We want to keep the momentum going that we've had since after Christmas. We're still in two cup competitions and have plenty of Premier League Under-18 games left in the season, so we'll look to go and take that into the next game (against West Ham United Under-18s) at the weekend.
"Towards the end of the season, these are the games you want to be in. You want the games to come thick and fast and it's great development for the boys to have that."
The momentum of the tie appeared to be with Exeter after their equaliser, but Barradell was confident that City were capable of producing something special in the final third once more to avoid the lottery of a penalty shootout.
"I thought Exeter played well," he continued, praising the opposition for their display. "They had a good game plan and they made it difficult for us. Full credit to them, they were very organised and they took us all the way with how they played.
"But we've got some excellent attacking players and I felt if we could continue trying to show quality on the ball, I always thought we would have a moment of quality and we would get that goal.
"The boys looked to play but it was a difficult pitch to play on. We showed a real good mentality and I spoke to the boys before the game about situations like the cup competitions when we have to show that professionalism and resilience.
"I thought they did that when they had to. To be pegged back in extra-time, they could have easily become frustrated, but they kept playing the way we wanted to play, kept to our game plan and got the result in the end."