Barradell: Improvement Clear To See
- Leicester City’s Under-18s beat Norwich City 4-2 at LCFC Training Ground on Saturday
- It was a first win in four for the young Foxes in U18 Premier League South
- Reece Evans (2), Amani Richards and Trey Nyoni all scored in Seagrave
- Coach Adam Barradell gave his reaction to a first victory of 2023
Forward Amani Richards continued his fine form with the opener, before Reece Evans found the net twice, while Trey Nyoni also scored to seal a convincing win for the young Foxes at LCFC Training Ground.
Baradell told LCFC.com after full-time: “Like we’ve been saying in the last couple of months, we’re better than we’ve shown in the first half of the season. I think in parts of the performance against Norwich on Saturday, it all came together.
“We had a real cutting edge about us, were excellent in transitions and some of the goals we scored were really pleasing. We’d done a lot of work on wide play, a lot of work around the final third, so it was really pleasing to see some individual performances come to fruition really.
“It was great that Reece Evans scored two goals, he’s developing well. He scored in the Youth Cup and scored two on Saturday. Amani Richards was a really attacking threat in wide areas, so some good individual pleasing performances as well as the team performance.”
Although more than satisfied with the attacking side of their game, City’s coach has identified parts to improve, including defensively, as Leicester were unable to maintain a clean sheet following Kenneth Aboh’s late brace.
“There’s always areas we want to work on, like our defensive shape,” he revealed. “We were a little bit too open at times. Being 4-0 up, we’ve got to manage the game better and have more control with and without the ball.
“We shouldn’t have let Norwich back into the game, so that’s something for us to learn from and move forward. But overall, I’m really pleased, it was a pleasing performance, and it keeps it positive.”
Able to field a young side, Barradell sees promising signs for the future. A first win in four league games and a maiden triumph of 2023, Leicester moved off the bottom of U18 Premier League South and responded to last month’s FA Youth Cup exit.
Barradell added: “We had two Under-16s on the pitch at the end, we had a young squad with six first year's involved. We’re looking to move the squad from the start of the season and get more young players involved and more Under-18s moving into the Under-21s.
“We want to improve where we are in the league – that’s one of the aims, as well as moving players through the pathway and developing the individuals. There’s a lot to work on towards the second half of the season.
“We’ve got plenty of games with teams around us and plenty of games in hand so it’s important that we try and improve on where we are at the moment and try and keep that positivity around individuals and the group.”