SAINTS B captain Oludare Olufunwa has insisted he feels responsible for his young Premier League 2 side, saying: “It’s a young group but they’ve really stepped up to the plate, now I feel like it’s my job to help them.”

The young full-back, who trained with the first-team during the pre-season camps, reflected after his side drew 0-0 at Nottingham Forest in Division Two of the premier youth leagues.

They were unlucky not to come away with a win but it was an improved result from the opening day defeat, regardless.

Speaking to the club website about him taking the armband in the last two fixtures, Olufunwa revealed: “It’s been good, you know.

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“The boys work hard, we’re quite a young group but a lot of the scholars played last year and they’ve really stepped up to the plate, now I feel like it’s my job to help them as well.

“I thought we controlled the game for large parts of it, we know we can take our chances as we’ve been working with Dave on that in training, but yeah it was good to come away with a clean sheet, I think we needed that.

“Dynel (Simeu) and Olly (Lancashire) have come in in the summer and both have got their heads down and working straight away in training. We’re bonding and always doing drills together to get that relationship.

On the playstyle Saints B operate within, which is the playbook handed down by manager Ralph Hasenhuttl, he added: “Yeah I mean of course you have to be adaptable every game, every game is different and has challenges.

“What the coaches do great with us is give us opportunities to practice those.”