Following Friday evening’s 0-0 draw with Sheffield Wednesday at the Oakwell Training Ground, Charlie Hickingbottom insists our U18s need to step up their game.
Neither side could break the deadlock, despite late chances for the visitors as the young Reds held on for a point to retain their position at the top of the Professional Development League.
“We can’t really take much from the game other than knowing we were poor all night,” began Hickingbottom. “We were miles off it compared to where we usually are.
“We’ll take the clean sheet obviously, and huge credit to Rogan, he was excellent all game and made four or five great saves. There are no positives we can take from it, but we’ll learn and go again for the Youth Cup next week.
“It was quite intense in the changing room after the game. The coaches made us aware that we were really poor, but we’ve got to realise that it’s our time now to improve and move on.”
Hickingbottom claimed his second full 90 minutes following his return from an injury that had him on the sidelines for a lengthy stretch of time.
The midfielder turned defender made it clear that he intends to keep working and improving after his time out.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve played this much football so every minute I’m taking as an opportunity to get my fitness up and hopefully get more consistency in my performances and hopefully have a good season,” he continued.
“We get together as a group every week and watch the games back and find out what went wrong. We’re going to get on the training pitch and sort out everything that went wrong. Hopefully we’ll be back on top in time for the next few games coming up.”
