We Showed Intent, Says Davies
- Chris Davies reflected on a positive night at St. James’ Park, as Leicester City beat Newcastle United on penalties
- The Club’s assistant manager was pleased with the way the Foxes coped with the pressure of converting their spot-kicks
- City will face Luton Town in the third round next month
Attacking midfielder James Maddison opened the scoring in Newcastle with a deflected free-kick, before Yoshinori Muto levelled after the break for Steve Bruce’s men.
The tie went straight to penalties, and Kasper Schmeichel denied Jonjo Shelvey and Isaac Hayden from 12 yards before Jamie Vardy converted the decisive spot-kick to send City into the third round.
Davies reflected to LCFC TV: “Yes, job done. I think our line-up was a sign of our intent. We wanted to come up here and win the game and get through to the next round and it took us penalties to do it, but it was a good night.
“Newcastle played a 5-4-1 shape, which is what they’ve been doing recently and against Spurs at the weekend, so it was a case of us trying to break them down for most of the game.
“Although we had a lot of controlled possession, we didn’t create an awful lot, we didn’t penetrate an awful lot, but at the same time we didn’t give hardly anything away.
“The game pattern was exactly how we expected it and we knew it could go to penalties because with it being at the end of 90 minutes, we were prepared for that as well. We practiced penalties yesterday, in preparation for that, and thankfully that helped us.”
Christian Fuchs, Maddison, Youri Tielemans and Vardy were all on target from the spot, and Davies praised their ability to cope with the pressure.
“It’s the pressure penalties, you can’t prepare so much for them, but you can certainly pick your side and work on that technique and that’s what you’ve got to try and focus on and block out everything else,” Davies said.
“It’s easier said than done, but they were good penalties. We obviously only missed one but sometimes the ‘keeper guesses the right way.
“[Also], James Maddison [did well] with his clever penalty as well, which came off, so that was great. Obviously Vards (Jamie Vardy) being our final taker in that pressure moment to win it for us, it was a really good penalty.”