Ward Happy To Play His Part
- Leicester City are through to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals
- The Foxes defeated Brighton & Hove Albion 4-2 on penalties
- Danny Ward spoke to LCFC TV after saving the decisive spot-kick
- The tie had finished 2-2 in normal time at King Power Stadium
Brighton & Hove Albion’s Enock Mwepu stepped up needing to score from 12 yards to keep his side in the shootout, but it was Ward who came out on top, saving his penalty to send the Foxes through to the next round.
Speaking following Wednesday evening’s success on Filbert Way, the 28-year-old, who kept a clean sheet in the victory over Millwall in the previous round, was happy to play his part once more.
“It’s always nice to save one in the shootout,” the Wales international admitted to LCFC TV while giving his post-match reaction. “I’ve got a pretty decent record, but you’ve got to be confident in those situations and I said to the boys before the shootout, you do your job and I’ll try to save one.
City Score Four While Ward Saves In Shootout
Danny Ward saved the decisive penalty as Leicester City advanced to the fifth round of the Carabao Cup.
“Normally in the lead up to cup games the boys will practice penalties the day before. Yesterday they took them individually, but I prefer to just take a back seat and go on instinct more or less.
“In those scenarios, for goalkeepers, you’ve got everything to gain. No one really expects us to save a Premier League footballers’ shot from 12 yards out. The odds are in their favour. To come out on the right side of it again is good for us.”
The two sides had drawn 2-2 in normal time, with Harvey Barnes and Ademola Lookman twice edging the hosts in front only for Adam Webster and Mwepu to level the scores and force a shootout. Although feeling that the performance could have been better, Ward knew that the main objective was to secure a passage into the last eight of the competition.
The shot-stopper continued: “Ultimately, we wanted to get through, regardless of how we played. We know we can perform better, especially second half with the ball, but in these cup competitions, no one looks at possession stats, they just look at who’s in the next round.
“It’s difficult to get rhythm, a lot of the boys have not had as many minutes as they would have liked this year, so fitness-wise it would have been tough towards the end. Lots of changes, lots of stops in the game, so it’s always difficult.
“It’s a cup competition but we’re playing against a Premier League team and a team that has proven to be a really tough team this year. We saw it earlier on in the season down at Brighton away, a really good team, a strong squad.
“But we’re happy to get through and we’ll see who we face next in the quarter-final.”
Brendan Rodgers made 10 changes to the starting XI, with starts for five Academy graduates, including Development Squad captain Vontae Daley-Campbell. Ward praised the young players’ impact, playing alongside a host of senior professionals.
“For them, it’s a valuable experience,” he added. “Vontae [Daley-Campbell] did the same as he did last year in the same sort of fixture, and he was brilliant again. It was brilliant experience for him and hopefully that can help his development and it can only help Leicester.”