The Royals under 18s were narrowly beaten by Leicester City this past weekend, as another extremely youthful Reading outfit put in an admirable performance.

Eamonn Dolan's side did take a one goal lead into the break after 15-year-old Jordan Obita opened the scoring, but despite Andrew White also finding the net the Foxes eventually ran out 3-2 winners.

Despite the result, academy manager Dolan is more than happy with his side's recent progress.

"We played very well, we were 1-0 up at half time but then they came out very strong and direct and in the end it dropped for them," he said.

"It was a very good performance and I've seen a lot of good development recently. To put it into perspective we played an U16 goalkeeper in Dean Santangelo, and you rarely see anybody do that. It's been a real eye opener for him because there's a massive gulf between U16 and U18 football, physically and everything else, but he's coped with that very well. We're very pleased with him."

Reading U18s: Santangelo, Arnold, Isaac (Losasso 70), McHugh, MacDonald (C), Mills, White (Ugwu 80), Raymond, Bell-Baggie, Obita, D'Ath (Morgan 80)

Unused Subs: Tyler, Harding