Paul Harsley’s youngsters eased to a 4-1 victory at Liverpool on Saturday evening and afterwards, defender Joel Latiebeaudiere revealed the squad met earlier in the week to discuss recent performances.
Feeling as though the displays in our opening three games warranted more than the solitary point gained against Chelsea, the EDS group ironed out what they must do to secure a win at Anfield.
READ | Liverpool 1-4 City: Match report
It proved to be all the motivation they needed and Latibeaudiere hailed the team spirit after the comfortable victory.
“We played very well,” said the 19-year-old.
“We’ve been building up to this. We trained well this week and we had a team meeting.
“The players got together in the changing room, just by ourselves.
“It was a group decision. A few of the leaders got together, pulled the team in and we said what we needed to say.
“We haven’t been playing badly, we just haven’t been getting results. It was just about that. About working hard. It showed tonight.
“The team spirit is high and I think that’s one of the reasons we played so well.”
Manager Harsley echoed his defender’s sentiments on the performance and was delighted a confident display was rewarded with three points.
He was equally pleased to hear about the team meeting and impressed with what he believes is a sign of maturity from his young group.
“It was a good performance,” added the manager.
“We controlled the game for the vast majority of it and looked really confident.
“We should probably be on nine points rather than four.
“The Southampton game hurt, when we were 3-1 up and some crazy things happened.
“The same thing happened at Chelsea last week, when we were playing well again, so I feel for the lads.
“We’ve had loads of talks about team ethic and the culture of the team so it’s great they’re taking ownership.
“We’re really pleased about it [team meeting] and it’s great that they have a lot of care and that professionalism about themselves.”
