Norwich Triumph Pleases Barradell
- Leicester City’s Under-18s defeat Norwich City 3-0 to return to winning ways
- Logan Briggs, Jack Butterfill and Abdullah Javaid were all on the scoresheet
- Adam Barradell was impressed with Friday’s performance from the young Foxes
- The coach wants to maintain that level when they face West Ham United
First-half goals from Logan Briggs, Jack Butterfill and Abdullah Javaid ensured the Foxes youngsters would be taking three points away from The Lotus Training Centre, winning for the first time in six matches.
City’s coach felt they hit the level at both ends of the pitch, recapturing a more clinical nature in front of goal before ensuring they maintained a shutout and moved up to fifth position in U18 Premier League South.
“It was a very positive performance,” he expressed to LCFC.com. “Especially first half, I thought we were excellent. Some of our fluidity with the ball, some of our pressing and then second half, the organisation and discipline out of possession to keep the clean sheet, it was pleasing.
“We’ve been working on that a lot, our work in the final third in and around the box. We challenged the attacking players to be more clinical. As a team in the last five or six games we’ve created a lot of opportunities to score, we’ve just not managed to execute it in and around the box, which fortunately on Friday we did, which was very pleasing.”
Barradell fielded a much-changed team for the trip to face the Canaries, making four switches to the side and handing out game time to several young players who stepped up an age group to make their first appearances at this level.
“A lot of young players and Under-16s came into the team, which I was delighted with,” he commented. “The Under-16s have been training with us quite a bit and it was great to see them in a competitive league game. All credit to the staff working throughout the player pathway.
“I thought they came in and showed some real personality and some real strengths in terms of their performance, I was really pleased with them. Logan Briggs had been around the FA Youth Cup team, so we’d seen what he could do, but he really performed well on the day.”
League leaders West Ham United present the next challenge for Leicester’s Under-18s on Saturday, when they face off at LCFC Training Ground (12pm BST kick-off). The Hammers emerged as 3-1 victors in the reverse fixture and are the only side to have conceded fewer goals than City this term.
Barradell added: “It’s a game we’re looking forward to. We’ve played West Ham in the U17 Premier League Cup and in the league and both times we’ve probably not performed to our maximum. So, that’s something we’ll be looking to change on Saturday when we play them.
“They are a good team but also, we’ll look to continue the performance level that we hit on Friday and it’s a game that the staff and players are really looking forward to.
“It’s important we pride ourselves on our defensive organisation and our compactness and our ability to go and put our stamp on the game so if we hit that performance level, we can certainly challenge anyone in our league and that’s what we’ll be looking to do.”