Shannon Ruth spoke of his pride as Albion under-21s progressed in the Bristol Street Motors EFL Trophy.

A particularly young Seagulls side drew 0-0 with Reading’s senior squad at the Amex before winning a shoot-out.

Albion boss Ruth said: “Pride is the over-riding feeling - for the young players to perform on a night like that.

“That is probably the biggest game some of them have been in and to ask them to perform in that manner against a really strong Reading side.

“Reading paid us a lot of respect with their line-up and to stand up to that - that’s our fourth clean sheet in the competition - and then to deal with pressure and perform with the penalties, I’m really happy.

“We were really aware they are the top scorers in this competition so we had to defend well.

”A lot of our style and identity is with the ball but we knew we were going to have to be resilient without it.

“Some of our defending of the box was excellent.

“Their one-v-one capability in wide areas was a real strength of theirs and I thought the full-backs dealt with that really well.

“We had a really good attitude to help each other.

“I was delighted with the approach from the players and ultimately the result.

“I feel we deserve it for the efforts we put in.”