Leeds United Under-21s boss Scott Gardner believes a result like his team’s 5-1 victory over AFC Bournemouth Under-21s had been coming.

The Whites have been impressive this season while not necessarily getting the scorelines to show for it, but were at their free-flowing best in the win against the Cherries.

“Really pleased, especially after the first maybe 15 minutes of that second half, that we won the game because we wanted to defend properly,” he told LUTV. “That is credit to them.

“We have been harsh on them and hopefully the message has started to sink in a little bit. We have been threatening to do that in a lot of games this season, winning by three, four or five goals, and haven’t quite managed to get that.

“They just need to see the value of sending messages to people and letting people know how good they are because I think they are a very good side.

“We are not relying on individuals. The team changes pretty consistently but we are pretty consistent in the style of play that we have, and we create a lot of chances.

“And particularly in that second half, I think we took nearly all of them barring the penalty, which obviously we got the rebound on.”

Looking ahead to how the schedule looks over the international break, Gardner added: “They definitely deserve a rest, the lads aren’t going away.

“They have got a few days and it gives us an opportunity to work on things training-wise because we have had so many games. It has been pretty much play, recover, play, recover so we have got a little bit of an opportunity to tighten up on a few bits as well.”