Andy Fensome felt Preston North End U18s were “excellent” as they won 3-2 away to Luton Town in the fifth round of the FA Youth Cup.
PNE headed to a Hatters side comfortably top of their league and fell behind early on, before goals from Felipe Rodriguez-Gentile and Finlay Cross-Adair flipped the game on its head.
The hosts got one back in the closing stages of the first half, but Kian Best had the final say with a sumptuous strike to set up a quarter-final tie against either Southampton or Fulham at Deepdale.
Speaking to iFollow, Fenners said: “It was a proper game of football. I’m losing my voice because for the last 25 minutes we were under the cosh quite a bit at times.
“But I thought the boys defended excellently. They got themselves stuck in, they put tackles in when they needed to, they ran back, they sprinted back. Yeah, it was a proper game of football.
“All week we’ve been talking about it and we’ve really pushed the lads. We’ve emphasised how important the game is.
“To play how we want, to play how we are capable of playing, I thought the guys were excellent.”
North End showed great character to turn the game around in the first half, with Cross-Adair netting in the 45th minute, but the hosts levelled the scoring in the second and final minute of added-time.
PNE picked themselves back up, though, and Best came up with a stunning goal to seal the victory, with the lads going on to defend well from that point.
On conceding the goal just before half-time, Fenners said: “It’s disappointing, we talked about it at half-time, and I thought we started the second half really well.
“We got ourselves in front with a great goal from Kian Best, from the edge of the box. I think that’s four in four from Kian now.
“Then it’s about digging in and we talked about that. If you’re in front in a game that’s such an important tie like this, it’s important that you fight for your place, fight for the right to go through, and I thought that’s what they did at the end.”
The young Lilywhites will find out their opponents for the quarter-finals on Tuesday night, with the winner of Southampton or Fulham set to come to Deepdale in the last eight.
A date for the fixture will be confirmed in due course, but all ties need to played before Saturday 4th March.
“We’ll sit back and see who we end up playing,” added Fenners. “But, again, I’ve said this through the rounds, we’ll deal with that when it comes along.
“We’ve got games to play before then, and lots and lots to happen before then. We want to keep winning football matches and that’s important.”