A Frustrating Night, Says Petty

- Leicester City’s Development Squad defeated at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Monday
- Coach Ben Petty reacts to a third consecutive Premier League 2 Division 1 defeat
- The first half display was City’s downfall, he believes
- Crystal Palace are up next for the Foxes' under-21s on Friday (7pm kick-off)

The Foxes youngsters were beaten 3-0 by Wolverhampton Wanderers Under-21s at Aggborough Stadium, courtesy of goals from Harvey Griffiths, Nathan Fraser and Connor Ronan.

Speaking to LCFC TV following full-time, Petty gave an honest assessment of how things unfolded in Kidderminster on Monday evening, as the away side struggled to deal with a potent Wolves attack.

“I thought we were very disappointing in the first half in particular,” the 45-year-old admitted. “It was a very strong Wolves team and they came out really firing. They brought some players from their first team squad and that’s credit to our lads that they want to play strong teams against us.

“But we’ve got to stand up and defend better than that. I take full responsibility for that. We’re aware of what Wolves had in terms of attributes and strengths and we didn’t cope with it well enough.

“We changed the formation, tried to get back in the game and did everything we could, and then we get caught with the third goal really against the run of play. We were banging on the door to get one back. The conditions were tough but it was a disappointing night for us.”

Still searching for a complete performance, there were some individual displays which pleased Petty, including that of England youth international Sammy Braybrooke in the middle of the park.

“It’s very frustrating,” City’s coach continued. “Because you do things to try and remedy that with the team, you try and put things into place to start things better. The players, I’ve just talked to them in there and I said it wasn’t good enough, the way we started the game in the first 25 minutes and ultimately, we’ve lost because of it.

“If anything was to come out of the game tonight, I thought Sammy Braybrooke was outstanding for the team. Whatever was thrown at him, he came out with the ball, he kept getting on it and he is our A-player at the moment and hopefully we can push him on. When you see a performance like that, he was the shining light.”

A third-straight PL2 defeat, and fourth across all competitions, City have dropped to 12th in the standings after 10 matches. They are without a league win since defeating Blackburn Rovers 4-0 at the end of August.

Although not all about results at this level, there is a clear determination to return to a more consistent level of performance throughout the squad, which is something Petty believes they are more than capable of.

He added: “Ultimately, we’re trying to produce players for the first team and create a winning environment here because I always think that you can produce better players in a winning team.

“We’re having a bad run. It might be the best thing for the players to learn when the going gets a little bit tougher. We’ll take the positives from it, and we’ll look at it again. We’ve got to look at the last few games and pick out the things that we haven’t been so good at.

“I definitely think being more solid defensively and starting the games better. There’s no doubt that we can take the ball and play good football but winning a game of football is more than that.”