"A game of two halves" - Stockdale reflects on Foxes draw | OneFootball

The young Magpies gained a two-goal lead before half-time, with Kyle Fitzgerald opening the scoring in the early stages before Vakhtang Salia, making his competitive debut for United's Under-21s, doubled the visitors' lead after heading home from Fitzgerald's cross.

Newcastle's youngsters, however, were unable to build on a dominant first half as Kirsten Otchere halved the deficit after the restart before Lorenz Hutchinson's late leveller saw the spoils shared at the Foxes' Training Ground.

"It was a game of two halves," Stockdale told newcastleunited.com. "I thought we were excellent in the first half, creating several opportunities and could have scored one or two more.

"We played well with and without the ball and maybe we thought we were a little bit too comfortable. I spoke to the boys at half-time, after we were in a similar position against Brighton, to start the second half on the front foot and we gave them a foot up in the game and, from there, the momentum changed.

"For about 25-30 minutes, Leicester probably felt they were on top although Aidan [Harris] was busy but probably didn't have a lot of difficult saves to make.

"Credit to the lads because, two or three months ago, we might have lost that game and we actually finished the game strongly and had a couple of good chances to win it."

Salia marked his return from a long-term hamstring injury sustained in August with a goal and Stockdale praised the Georgian teenager's first competitive outing of the 2025/26 campaign.

With Fitzgerald and Seung-soo Park also contributing in front of goal against the Foxes' second-string, Stockdale was pleased with his forward's performances in attack.

"[Salia's] very mature and a really good player. It's really good to see him back out on the training pitch and now in the games.

"We have to be careful with him. He's a young player who has had a very significant injury so we need to be mindful of that and not rush him. He should be really pleased with his performance tonight. It was a really good goal and hopefully we start to build up his minutes.

"The front three were a real threat and we've got options that are just behind them as well so there's good competition for places.

"Kyle's got really good moments in games. Our challenge with him, and he knows this, is to do the other side of the game a bit better because that's what he needs to work on and develop. A forward is judged on goals and assists and he's ticking a lot of boxes with that."

Newcastle's youngsters currently sit in 23rd place of the 29-team division, four points adrift of the play-off places with four league games remaining.

With just one defeat in their last six league games, scoring 12 goals in the process, Stockdale is hopeful his side can continue their bright form in order to seal a spot in the top 16.

"I set the players that challenge about a month ago," he explained. "There's a really big game on Friday at home to Blackburn. Four points out of the week would be really good. That's the aim.

"It will be a late night after tonight's game but we have to recover properly and see what we've got as we had a few players playing through little niggles at the end."