Maresca: A Difficult Moment For Us
- Leicester City were beaten by Queens Park Rangers at King Power Stadium
- Enzo Maresca gave his reaction to a third straight league defeat for the Foxes
- City’s Manager felt they created enough chances to take something from the game
- The gap at the top of the Sky Bet Championship has been cut to three points
The Hoops lifted themselves further clear of relegation danger with victory at King Power Stadium, but for City, the gap at the top has been cut to just three points following a third successive league defeat.
Goals either side of half-time from Ilias Chair and Sinclair Armstrong – the latter with his first touch after coming on as a substitute – did the damage on Filbert Way and, although the Foxes pulled one back, it wasn’t enough.
Speaking following full-time, Maresca said: “When you drop points it’s always a bad feeling, especially in this moment when if you win points, you see yourself getting closer to the target. It’s a matter of balance.
“It is what it is. Probably in the last three games we can be a little bit more lucky for the amount of shots and amount of chances we’ve had, but we need to just deal with that and try to win games very soon.
“They did everything, they did an incredible effort. They created many chances and shot many times. This is a moment where we struggle to score goals, but hopefully we can win games again soon.”
Young centre-back Ben Nelson was the man to find the net for Maresca’s men, netting his first-ever LCFC goal on his maiden home start in the Championship, as the 19-year-old defender deputised for the suspended Jannik Vestergaard.
“He played very well,” the Italian analysed. “We are happy with Ben. He is one of the youngest we have in the squad. He has improved many things like all the players.
“After that (Nelson’s goal), they put one extra defender, so it was more difficult, but we had some more shots and chances also.”
There is little time to dwell on defeat, with a trip to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light coming up on Tuesday evening (7:45pm GMT kick-off) and a chance to return to winning ways.
“In this league, you have to be mentally strong,” the 44-year-old added. “Now we have a game in three days so we have to go again. We need to recover because we played 120 minutes three days ago and then played again today.
“It can be a good thing and a bad thing because you do not have time to think, that’s the good thing, but the bad thing is that you don’t have time to rest.”