‘We Had A Go’ – Coady’s Assessment Of Man Utd Defeat
- Leicester City were defeated 5-2 by Manchester United in the Carabao Cup last-16
- Conor Coady and Bilal El Khannouss scored the Foxes’ goals at Old Trafford
- The defender reflected on a disappointing night for Steve Cooper’s side
The Foxes were beaten 5-2 at Old Trafford on Wednesday evening to end their cup run at the fourth-round stage, with a brace apiece from Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes doing the damage for Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side, alongside Alejandro Garnacho’s goal.
Coady felt the second United goal, and not taking advantage of a decent start to the second half, were two crucial moments in the contest that ultimately proved costly.
“It was a strange game,” the defender commented following full-time. “If I'm being honest, everything was our own doing. We didn't like the goals we conceded. We can't concede that many goals in the game, I'll say that first hand as a defender.
“If you're going to concede that amount of goals, you're never going to win the game. We scored two good set-pieces, and you can talk about the lad who put it in the top corner, but it’s the mistakes we made.
City Beaten At Old Trafford
The major moments from Leicester City's 5-2 reverse to Man Utd in the Carabao Cup.
“We thought the second goal was offside, then the deflected goal, so things went against us. But at the same time, we don't want to be conceding those goals, so it's disappointing from my point of view.
“We're conceding goals that we can't be, so we need to look at that and get better. But it is disappointing because we thought we had them for spells as well. I thought we played some good stuff at times. I think especially at the start the second half and end of the first half.
“We were moving the ball quite well and creating things. But from a defender's points of view, I go in there and I'm disappointed because you can't concede five goals in a game of football.
“The second goal was a strange one, I'll be honest, because I actually thought to myself, as a defender, you work on things to catch people offside if you feel like you can do it or you can step up the pitch... I felt at the time that he was offside.
“But it's been given, it is what it is, so you move on and then at the start the second half, we played some really good stuff. We were moving it, we wanted to capitalise. We said at half-time if we get the next goal, it'll be interesting, because we know what happened a few weeks ago at Southampton as well, so we tried our best.
“We had to go and then again it was just a mistake at the end and there's no blame on anybody for mistakes here. Mistakes come and you move on and you help the lads and you get through it and it is what it is. From a team point of view, we can't concede five goals and that's a massive disappointment.”
Steve Cooper made nine changes to the starting XI from the Nottingham Forest defeat, including bringing in Coady, who got on the scoresheet himself late in the first half - his first goal for the Club. Bilal El Khannouss also netted his maiden LCFC goal in the reverse, meanwhile.
“The lads have given a good shift,” the centre-back continued. “To come to Old Trafford, there's not a lot of lads who played a lot of football in that dressing room and they've come into a big game against a real, real good opposition and had a real good go, but just for me, as a defender, looking at it and conceding that amount of goals isn't good enough.
“We had a good go at the start of the second half. We said the next goal was vital and I'll be completely honest, it (the fifth goal) did knock the stuffing out of us a little bit, and it was a tough one to come back from then.
“Of course you've got to pick positives. I've played football a long time, and I understand that you've got to look at positives in the game. But you've also got to look at the negatives. Believe me, you can't just wipe over them and push it to one side.
“You've got to look at it and ask where did it go wrong? And what can we do to get better?'
“It doesn't happen again because it might be a bit of a cliché at times, but once you've conceded one, don't concede another and then we concede another.”
Coady: A Strange Game
Conor Coady reflects on Leicester City's 5-2 loss to Manchester United in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.
Moving on from the disappointment, Ipswich Town await back in the Premier League on Saturday, a 3pm GMT kick-off at Portman Road as City look to get back on track.
The 31-year-old added: “We go in tomorrow, we look at the clips from where we've gone wrong, we look at where we've gone right, as we move the ball well and we've done certain things, scored two good goals but we look at where we've gone wrong and say that doesn't happen again.
“Every game is a perfect game to bounce back from. It doesn't matter who you're playing Saturday, it really doesn't. You can say we're playing Ipswich, but it didn't matter if we're playing Man City, it doesn't matter.
“We know we'll have Leicester fans with us in full force on Saturday and it's huge that we go there, we pick ourselves up and try to put it right for Saturday.”