Luis Binks: 'We hung in there and got our rewards'

Teenage defender Luis Binks admitted our Development Squad still has room for improvement, despite an impressive showing at Colchester on Tuesday night.

Taking on a senior League Two side in our second group stage match of the Leasing.com Trophy, we played well over the 90 minutes to earn a 1-1 draw at the JobServe Community Stadium, before winning the subsequent penalty shootout for an extra point.

Luis impressed at centre-back alongside Malachi Fagan-Walcott. Both still technically Under-18s players, the pair kept Colchester forwards Luke Norris and Jevani Brown largely under control before both scoring their spot-kicks in the shootout.

Modest in his assessment of the game, 18-year-old Luis said resilience was key to making sure we got off the mark in Southern Group A following a narrow defeat at Ipswich last month.

“It was a good result, a good shift from the boys,” he said. “We needed that result after a few games where the final scorelines haven’t been good but we did well, stayed in the game and won the penalty shootout, which is great.

“It was obviously a bad time to concede going into half-time (Norris headed Colchester in front on 44 minutes) but we came out in the second half and I think we could have won it in the second half to be honest, but we stayed in the contest and didn't concede. Colchester had a chance late on which was poor defending from us, but we hung in there and got our rewards later.”

Manning the barricades alongside 17-year-old Malachi, Luis, who was singled out for praise by coach Wayne Burnett after the recent Premier League 2 match at Brighton, was pleased to be able to test himself against senior professionals.

“It was hard, of course, but Malachi and I have played together for a long time and I think we complement each other well,” he said. “I think we showed that in places tonight.

“Like I said, it was about the team hanging in there and we did that, which we haven't done in recent weeks. After the shootout, we've come away with two points, which is obviously better than one and now we move on to focus on the next game.”

Our Development Squad returns to action on Friday 18 October when we host Leicester City in the Premier League 2 at Stevenage (7pm).