Our Academy earned a 1-0 win over Northampton last night, and boss Eamonn Dolan was pleased to see us progress in the FA Youth Cup, sponsored by E.ON.

A late goal from Nicholas Bignall sent us through, and we face Man City at home in the next round.

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Eamonn told readingfc.co.uk, "All credit to Northampton, they were teriffic. Great credit to Sean Parish and Geoff Harrap. The great strength of British football is clubs doing a lot of good work - we all work hard.

"As an Academy we spend more money than Northampton so we would expect to come here and win, but I thought it was a very close game.

"I thought they played great football, were tremendously honest, and put in some quality individual performances. I think they've got some real players there. And that's what it's about.

"It was a little bit of a test today, a little bit of pressure and I thought it was important that the boys responded very well in ugly conditions. I thought we really matched their fight. I don't think we showed enough quality but that was partly credit to how Northampton kept us at bay.

"I thought our fitness told in the end, as the game went on we were getting stronger both physically and mentally. And I'm delighted to win - we've done very well in the Youth Cup over the last few years and we've shown great consistency. That adds to what we are about and what the club are about really."

New signing Radoslav Vasilev played up front, and showed nice touches; plenty of quality.

Eamonn said, "I think it was a real shock for Radoslav tonight with the freezing cold- what a welcome to England that was. He battled away really well and he's got bags of quality. But you have to give credit to Mark Haines, the centre-back who was playing for Northampton, I thought he was excellent.

"He is a real target man, Radoslav. And that was his first real game in English football. He must have wondered what was going on for some of it - the ball was in the air and this and that, but he got on with it.

"I thought there were some really steady performances. The defence restricted them to very few chances and that is a team that does score goals.

"At half time we said we needed to show some more quality and be brave. Not brave by winning tackles but being brave by using the brain and passing the ball. We didn't do enough of that, but once we did we got going. There were lots of pleasing things to see out there.

"With kids sometimes the Youth Cup is hyped up so much. You can see some of the decisions they make are really strange. It's a cup competition so anything can happen on the night and yet how do you judge it. It's like the Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup all rolled into one night. They are young boys and they make mistakes.

"You get the odd pocket of kids you know that can do better on both sides. But it's important to come here and keep a clean sheet and get the win."

Bignall's goal came three minutes from the end, putting the possibility of extra time to bed.

Eamonn said, "I genuinely never felt it would go to extra time. I felt we would just keep doing what we were doing, we controlled the second half. Normally Gylfi Sigurdsson is our set play expert, a superb technician and yet we still really threatened from corners.

"We came here without Clovis Kamdjo, Gary Frewen, Viktor Illugason, Gylfi, Tom Lyskov and others. We only had 12 fit outfield players who are scholars and so it was great to see Olly Kelly and Andy White on the bench, so this had banana skin written all over it really, and it's always nice to have avoided it.

"A pleasing night all round."