Premier League day 16: Leicester City 2-1 Chelsea FC

Leicester City and Vardy strike again to beat a lackluster Chelsea that sits now at the bottom of the League. LCFC leads the Premier League and continues to impress game after the game. here is what the managers had to say after the match:

Claudio Ranieri, Leicester manager:

“We played together and we pressed together and I’m very pleased for my players but also for our fans. Fantastic. They pushed a lot behind us and they are dreaming. They have to dream, not us. I’m very, very pleased. We played one hour fantastic and in the last 30 minutes we suffered, but it’s normal when you play against big champions like Chelsea. It was an amazing match but our spirit was great. 
Without quality you can do nothing. But I think our strength is our spirit. We help each other, it’s true because you watch the match and we always look to press and immediately arrives the second and the third. They press and get the ball then straight away we try to score. These players are friendly. There is a very good sprit and they enjoy each other’s company. Also after the match and after training sessions some players stay together. That is good spirit and you see on the pitch when they play, even when there’s a long ball, the other runs to try to catch the ball – that is good”. 

Jose Mourinho, Chelsea manager:

‘I worked for four days on this match,’ he said. ‘I prepared everything related to the opposition. I identified four movements where they score almost all of their goals. My players got all that information and training in the last three days. From the four types of situation I identified we conceded the first and the second goal. I think they listened and they are good enough, but the mistakes were there.

They [Leicester] fought with everything, they defended with everything, and the ballboys were amazing too. I say the point about the ballboys because it’s a disgrace for the Premier League, but I want to make it clear I don’t want that story to be in front of a result Leicester deserved.

I don’t want to focus only on the two goals we conceded, because in the past four or five matches we were defensively good and we had clean sheets,’ he continued. We also have another problem which is the number of goals our attacking players are scoring, or in this case aren’t scoring. When we make defensive mistakes we are punished because we don’t score enough goals. The team pays for the number of goals our attacking players aren’t scoring. 

I don’t think it is right I go to the board and say these players are not good and we need to spend 50 or 100 or whatever. We have these players and it is with these players we have to go, and the players that are not performing well must feel attacked in their pride, in their self-esteem and they have to do everything to get results in a humble way.

‘I don’t think they can feel they are top players or they are superstars. At the moment they have to be humble, they have to look to the Leicester boys and feel that they are the stars, they are the top players’.

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