‘Determined To Win Our Final Two Games’ – Maresca
Preston North End are the opponents at Deepdale on Monday after Premier League promotion was confirmed following Leeds United's defeat Queens Park Rangers on Friday.
The events of Friday night were preceded by City's 5-0 victory over Southampton - ultimately sealing their top flight return. The Foxes are now in a two-way battle for the title with Ipswich Town.
'So proud'
“I feel so proud to see the hard work of everybody associated with Leicester City throughout the entire season rewarded with our promotion to the Premier League,” Maresca said on Saturday morning. “This achievement is one for us all to share and one that I know means so much to the owners, to the players and to our supporters.
“What we have accomplished was not easy. There are many good teams in a very competitive league, but the work we’ve done together with our players to turn our idea of how to play into a reality has helped us overcome all these challenges. This is a fantastic moment for the Football Club and one we should celebrate, but we still have work to do. We’re determined to end this season in first place and lift that trophy in front of our supporters at King Power Stadium on the final day.”
One win away
The Italian, meanwhile, also hosted a press conference on Friday, before promotion was sealed.
Although speaking about the race for the top two at the time, Maresca's words last week still carry relevance, with the Foxes now hoping to wrap up the Championship title. One win - with Blackburn Rovers also visiting Leicester at the weekend - will be enough for City.
“As we’ve said many times, it’s a very long season," he explained on Friday. "The Championship is an unbelievable league. To be in the place that we are now, it’s a good feeling, to be honest.
“Because, as we said the other day before the Southampton game, we didn’t know how many games we needed to win, we didn’t know how many points we needed. But after Southampton, you know that we [needed] just one win for promotion.
“It’s the same mentality that we had until today, just thinking about the Preston game. After Preston, thinking about Blackburn. The only way now is to be focused on the Preston game.”
‘We know it’ll be tough’
While Preston may not have promotion or survival to play for, now unable to gate crash the top six, they have shown themselves to be more than capable of producing a result against the division’s best sides across the season.
“We know it will be a tough game,” the 44-year-old added. “Preston have a good record against the top eight teams in the league – against Southampton, Norwich, all of us. They beat Leeds, beat Ipswich, beat Coventry and drew against Hull City.
“They are very good, but we are going to try and prepare like we have done all season. In this moment, it’s just two games to go. The good thing now is that we can be focused.
“You saw a week ago that Watford drew against Ipswich, because you can see in this moment that everyone wants to finish well and in the right way.”