Ward Praises ‘Brilliant’ City Defending
- Danny Ward reflects on Leicester City’s 2-0 Premier League win at West Ham United
- The Wales stopper helped the Foxes to their sixth clean sheet in eight league games
- James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were on the scoresheet for City
City are up to 12th position in the Premier League after a run of six clean sheets in eight matches which has delivered 16 points, with five wins and a draw during that period. The success at London Stadium was a thoroughly deserved.
Ward has been at the heart of Leicester’s resurgence, delivering a series of confident displays to help his team climb the standings before the winter break.
“It really shows, this performance, the character and resilience that we’ve got in the changing room after what was a really disappointing start to the season,” he told LCFC TV.
“We’ve won in many different ways this year away from home, we’ve dominated the ball and scored lots of goals, but today was a little bit different. We weren’t so good with the ball but we defended brilliantly to a man, from the front boys pressing, to defending the 18-yard box with character.”
Goals - Maddison & Barnes On Target
Enjoy the goals from London Stadium as James Maddison and Harvey Barnes strike in a 2-0 victory for Leicester City.
James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were the men to win the points for Leicester, with the former netting after eight minutes before the latter swept home after a lethal counter-attack.
Ward said of the defending his side had to do: “I think that comes with confidence from previous performances, going up in the game was maybe a problem for us earlier in the season, whereas now, there’s a real calmness.
“If we’re being pushed back into our own half, we’ve got the mentality now, and the confidence, to stay calm and deal with what we have to. Thankfully, it’s worked for us of late.”
Although City will now have to wait until Boxing Day to play their next Premier League match, Ward believes they have set themselves a standard that they will look to adhere to once the FIFA World Cup comes to an end in December.
“It’s a benchmark for us now for when we do come back,” he said. “The boys will go away to the World Cup and have a well-deserved rest. There’s been a lot of work recently going on behind the scenes.
“You can see the boys have come off absolutely shattered again. We’ll go and enjoy it. We’ve set ourselves a standard now, a standard which we’ve always had in us. We’ll go again.”
Having not won in their first seven Premier League matches, City are now one of the most in-form sides in the division. Ward says he is thrilled to have played his part in the Foxes bouncing back in 2022/23.
“Every footballer wants to play, goalkeepers are a unique position where you have the one position – that’s it,” he continued. “You can’t fill in on any other space on the pitch, so it was difficult to not play for so long.
“I had a bit of an adjustment period at the start of the season, but I’m really enjoying it. It helps when you come to places like this where you grind out a nice 2-0 win.”
Ward is one of a number of City stars heading to the FIFA World Cup in Qatar later this month, and he explained his tight schedule ahead of linking up with the Wales squad.
He said: “I’ll go home tonight, go and see the little one and the missus before I head down to Cardiff tomorrow. The World Cup has been at the back of everyone’s minds, but we’ve had a job to do, and we’ve gone on a really good run. We look defensively solid and we’re getting to where we should be.”