Smith: Supporters' Togetherness Rubbing Off On Players

- Leicester City drew 1-1 away at Leeds United in the Premier League on Tuesday
- Manager Dean Smith was disappointed not to take all three in Yorkshire
- He was pleased with much of the performance and praised the Club's fans 

A topsy-turvy encounter at Elland Road ended in a 1-1 draw, with Jamie Vardy's 80th-minute strike equalising Luis Sinisterra's opener. Both teams could have won and lost the game late on, but a point nudges each further away from danger in the Premier League.

City are in 17th place, on 29 points, one above Everton, who they host at King Power Stadium on Monday. The Foxes were backed in Yorkshire by nearly 3,000 vocal supporters in the away end and Smith says that togetherness can be a useful tool in the Club's battle to avoid the drop. It's now five games to go before the end of the season.

"They were brilliant and it was great to see so many scarves there," the Manager told LCFC TV. "As I’ve said right from the start when I came in, the togetherness of the supporters will rub off on the players out on the pitch and help them.

"I can see players now playing with a lot more belief and confidence which will only help us now. That feeling of not losing – which has happened too frequently this season – and being tougher to beat now is going to hold us in good stead."

Smith paid tribute to his players' application at full-time, crediting them for 'dominating' large spells of the game in Leeds, despite falling behind in front of a raucous crowd. He feels the Foxes were unfortunate not to take all three points. Youri Tielemans had an eight-minute stunner disallowed by VAR for an offside in the build up. 

"I suppose emotions were up and down," he added. "It was a great start, an unbelievable strike from Youri. You think you’ve taken the lead and then it gets rubbed off. I’ve not seen it back, but apparently Bouba [Soumaré] was offside.

"It gives their fans a big lift then, but I thought we dominated for the first 20 minutes, up until the goal. It was a poor goal to concede. We weren’t in the right positions from the throw-in and they end up getting an unchallenged cross into the box.

"There are things we can do better there. It became a bit to and fro after that, until the half-time period, but I thought we took control again in the second half. We just needed to penetrate a little bit more, hence the substitutions

"They were in a low block for the first 20 minutes of the second half. I felt we would go on and score a goal. It’s always hard when teams are in a low block and you need that creativity, which we have got in the team, and we found it in the end. It’s four points. We’d want more with the position we’re in, but we’re unbeaten in the last two games.

"Hopefully now we’ll go back to the King Power, with our fans behind us like they were on Saturday.

"We didn’t want to lose and have Leeds climb further away from us. I didn’t feel we deserved to lose, but we’re running out of time to win football games, so bring on Everton."

The 52-year-old is also delighted for Vardy, who's now on 169 goals for Leicester City.

"Vards and Pato (Patson Daka) coming on, I thought we then starting penetrating with our football," he explained. "We opened them a couple of times. Vards gets the goal. Kel [Iheanacho] did really well. Madders also did well.

"I’m really pleased for Vards to get his goal. It’s not been the most fruitful season for him, but what a time to go and get a goal. Hopefully that gives him the confidence for the run-in now. He’ll probably feel he should have got that other one too.

"Again, I’ve not seen it back, but it was ruled out for offside. Maybe Pato could have gone for goal himself, but he’s made a good chance there for Vards. I’m a tad disappointed. I feel like we’ve lost two points, but they’ve had two good chances at the end, so we could’ve lost the game we feel we should have won."

Iheanacho was withdrawn for the Foxes after pulling up in the move which led to City's equaliser, although Smith is waiting on scan results before diagnosing any injury.

"It's too soon," he said. "He felt his groin and it didn’t look great, so we’ll have to wait until we get a scan on it."