The Ball Didn't Want To Go In, Says Ricardo

- Ricardo Pereira reflects on Leicester City's 3-1 defeat at Leeds United on Friday
- City were on top for much of the game, but the Yorkshire hosts turned it around late on
- Enzo Maresca's men remain top of the Sky Bet Championship by a margin of six points
- Ricardo says Leicester must move on quickly and continue to win points

The Foxes were managing an intense encounter well courtesy of Wout Faes' 15th-minute header at Elland Road, but the Sky Bet Championship leaders struggled to take their chances to double their lead.

Leeds pushed in the final 10 minutes and found three late goals through Connor Roberts, Archie Gray and Patrick Bamford to turn the match on its head and hand City a sixth defeat of the season. Leicester remain top by six points.

"When you see the result, it’s a tough one, but we were the better the team," Ricardo said afterwards. "We were there for 80 minutes. We had a good first half. In the second half, they had the ball, but they didn’t create anything.

"They didn’t have many chances to score. We need to be more clinical and manage the game better.

"We knew all about the crowd here. They wanted to start fast, but I think we managed it well. We tried to impose [ourselves]. The game was intense. There were a little more transitions than we wanted, but still, we managed it well.

"We went in at half-time winning and I think, if we scored the chances we had at the beginning of the second half, it would make a huge difference today. That’s football. We tried to create chances and the ball didn’t want to go in for the second one. We go again as usual."

Leicester will feel hard done by after a Patson Daka goal was controversially ruled out for offside, while the Leeds goals came about due to a succession of harsh deflections. Ricardo, though, says they must accept it and move on.

They're due at Vitality Stadium on Tuesday for an Emirates FA Cup Fifth Round tie against AFC Bournemouth (7:30pm GMT kick-off).

"With the deflections, it’s hard to do better," he added. "It’s not the first or the second time [it’s happened], that’s football. The gaffer said it was more important for them, but of course we wanted to get the points.

"We wanted to win, especially after last week, but we’re still in a very good position. We just need to keep going and keep winning. It’s a quick change to another competition. Now we go to the FA Cup and then we have time to think about QPR and we’ll go game to game."