Petty: Excellent From Start To Finish

- Thoughts from Ben Petty following the Leicester City Development Squad’s win over Leeds United
- It finished 2-0 thanks to a brace from Silko Thomas at LCFC Training Ground
- City’s coach welcomed the manner of the performance and result in Seagrave
- Everton are up next for the Foxes youngsters in Premier League 2 on Friday night

Silko Thomas struck twice in the first half at LCFC Training Ground to earn the young Foxes three Premier League 2 points and a clean sheet on home turf, their first league triumph since September.

It lifts Leicester above the Whites in the PL2 standings and into 22nd place, with coach Petty eyeing a spot in the end of season play-offs. City are currently four points outside of the top 16.

“It does feel sweet,” he admitted following full-time in Seagrave. “I'm delighted for the players; they're working really hard on the training pitch and the last few games haven't really felt like they've got their just rewards.

“But tonight, I thought they were excellent from start to finish. They thoroughly deserve the three points. It is important and we've talked about it a lot. There's 10 games to go and we're targeting five or six wins. We really want to get in that top 16.

“We feel like we deserve to be there, and we're good enough to be there, so it's about transmitting that into the performances on the pitch and tonight was a good challenge. Leeds are a really good side and I thought we dominated it from start to finish. I'm delighted with it.”

While Thomas was the man to find the net on both occasions, Petty sees attacking threats across the front line and has challenged those players to provide goal contributions in the coming weeks.

The 46-year-old explained: “Silko hasn't been very well last in the 24 hours and credit to him, he didn't train yesterday, and he said he wanted to play and that's the sort of attitude you want from your players. I think he's really enjoying his life at Leicester and we're starting to see the best of him now.

“If we can get a little bit more clinical in both boxes, I think we'll be a force to be reckoned with. Getting the first goal was really important for the confidence. And then, obviously the second one before half-time just gave us a little bit of breathing space.

“In the second half, we managed the game really well, but you can see we're creating the chances. We've just got to be more clinical and I'm sure that will come because we've got players like Chris Popov, Kian Pennant and Amani Richards.

“Hopefully they'll come into form over the last part of the season and we can finish really strongly.”

Recovering well from the narrow Premier League Cup last-16 defeat to Crystal Palace three days earlier, there’s little time to rest up ahead of another PL2 encounter this Friday, away to Everton (7pm GMT kick-off).

Petty added: “I'm delighted because I thought we played well on Friday and, on another day, we probably would have got the result we wanted. To bounce back tonight, three days after that game, I thought the energy levels were fantastic.

“It shows that the lads are really fit and now we've got to prepare for Friday. That's another tough game away at Everton.”