Spencer-Adams: Momentum Is With Us

- Leicester City’s Development Squad came away from Everton with all three points
- Friday’s 2-1 success at Haig Avenue was their third PL2 win in a row
- Bayli Spencer-Adams played a part in both goals to complete a comeback
- He spoke about the confidence the recent good form has given the squad

The Foxes youngsters came from behind to see off Everton Under-23s at Haig Avenue on Friday night, backing up victories over Brighton & Hove Albion and West Ham United by the same 2-1 scoreline.

The fixture was played amid testing conditions in Southport and it was the hosts who coped better during the opening half an hour, edging themselves ahead when Joe Anderson turned in Rhys Hughes’ free-kick.

City roared back in the second period, however, making it nine points from a possible nine in their last three matches and four wins out of five to rise up to seventh in the Premier League 2 Division 1 standings.

“I thought it was a challenging opening,” the defender admitted to LCFC TV. “It’s always difficult playing in the conditions that we had, but the lads did well to manage it, played the game, switched it up, sometimes going long, sometimes going short.

“We had some chances first half, but we just didn’t pounce on them. But the lads grew into the game, and we knew we had the upper hand going into the last 20 minutes of the first half and we just continued that throughout the second half.

“We knew the game would be like this, Ben [Petty] told us it would be based on set pieces. If we didn’t take our chances… from the set piece they scored. We knew it would be a tight game but going into the second half, we had a lot of confidence.”

Spencer-Adams was involved in both of City’s goals, firstly playing an aerial ball forward for Tawanda Maswanhise, who expertly controlled and finished the pass to equalise and notch his seventh goal of the season.

The centre-back thought he had completed the turnaround himself, netting his second goal in a Leicester City shirt when David Unsworth’s Toffees were undone by Oliver Ewing’s pinpoint free-kick, though it eventually went down as an Elijah Campbell own goal.

He explained: “Ben told us at half-time to look forward more and play forward passes, so when I got the ball, I had a bit of time and I knew J (Tawanda Maswanhise) likes to make those tricky runs in behind, so just tried to pick him out and luckily it was a good ball and a great finish.

“J is a great finisher, he does it a lot on the training ground and obviously you see in matches, he is on his sixth or seventh goal, so if I pick him out, I trust him to finish it and put it in the back of the net.

“I’m just delighted that we won the game really. It’s just about the result at the end of the day, not the individual performances and who scores, but it was good to get on the end of a cross. Oli [Ewing] has been putting in a few good balls.

“There’s a few set pieces that we run through on the training ground with the staff and a few of the centre-backs. It’s really just trying to get in and attack the ball as much as you can because obviously you never know what can happen from it and luckily today, I’ve attacked it and it’s ended up in the goal.”

During his first season with the Club, the ex-Arsenal youngster has featured 15 times for Leicester’s Development Squad, including 14 Premier League 2 appearances. He aims to continue on the current upward trajectory during the remainder of this campaign.

“I came in and the lads took to me well,” the 20-year-old added. “I’ve just had to get my head down and really focus, but it’s a great environment to be in so it makes it easy to just work hard. That’s all I’m trying to do, help the team as much as I can and improve each and every day really.

“The lads our definitely building the momentum. I feel like it has been a very good week of training and we’re feeling positive, going into games more confident. Hopefully we’ll finish the season strong. I think we’ve got eight or nine games left and we’ll be going into those with a lot of confidence.”