WANDERERS boss Gareth Ainsworth said he felt like a winner after being filled with pride at his side's display in a losing cause against Leicester City.

Blues were seconds away from taking the Championship side to extra time in the Capital One Cup first round before Sean St Ledger broke their hearts with a stoppage time winner.

And Ainsworth was bursting with pride at his players' efforts against a team expected to challenge for promotion at the end of the season.

He said: "I feel like a winner tonight. The way we performed, the way we approached the game and the way we've stood up to a Premiership contending team was outstanding.

"Every supporter who sang their hearts out tonight should go home proud because I am certainly going to go home proud.

"Every one of those players are going to need lifting but they gave me everything they had, and some.

"Performance is more important than results. Results will come with performance. If we keep performing the way we are doing, results will take care of themselves.

"I thought we got back in the game really well and for the want of 30 seconds we'd still be out there now."

Ainsworth added: "I think they're tired more than deflated. A couple of the Leicester players said to our players during the game, 'You lot will do well in League Two'. To have compliments like that from you peers who play at Championship level - and some have played at Premiership level - I think they were surprised at what we gave them."

The Blues boss fielded one of the youngest back fours in the club's history as 20-year-olds Charles Dunne and Anthony Stewart were paired with 18-year-old Kortney Hause, with Marvin McCoy the senior pro.

He said: "Anthony Stewart and Kortney Hause were fantastic - what a pairing.

"It's well documented how well Charles Dunne is doing and he will play higher. Marvin McCoy was the old man in the back four at 24 years old. It shows how far we are going and how we are driving forward with this club."

Ainsworth said he would have fancied his chances of causing an upset in extra time, having just freshened things up with three substitutions.

He said: "We're a fit bunch. I had just put JP [Pittman], Paris [Cowan-Hall] and Max [Kretzschmar] on so we had some young fresh legs on the pitch but we had some old, tired legs as well. If there's any blessing, maybe extra time would have drained us even more for Saturday."

Wanderers famously beat Leicester 12 years ago in the FA Cup and Ainsworth said he used that to inspire his team in his pre match pep talk.
He said: "It would have been fairytale stuff again to see the ball fly in the net, but they got us back. It was 2-1 the other way tonight."