Shakespeare Delighted By Forceful Foxes
- Craig Shakespeare reflects on Leicester City's pre-season campaign
- The Foxes ended their summer with a 2-1 success over Borussia Mönchengladbach on Friday
- Jamie Vardy struck twice for City in the second half at King Power Stadium
- New signing Kelechi Iheanacho, signed on Thursday, also made his maiden appearance
Jamie Vardy scored a brace in City's final outing before the Premier League curtain-raiser at Arsenal while Kelechi Iheanacho was handed just shy of 20 minutes playing time at King Power Stadium.
Evaluating his side’s performance against the German visitors on Friday evening, Sheakespeare told LCFC TV: “I spoke to the boys before the game and I said 'let’s have a performance tonight'.
"I knew that if we got the performance, we should get a result. Of course, they [Mönchengladbach] came and showed what a good, possession-based team they are, they did threaten us at times.
Shakespeare: Game Time Key
Craig Shakespeare talks about the importance of every player having the same amount of game time throughout pre-season, in the build-up to Arsenal next Friday.
“It was evenly-contested in terms of chances, but in the second half, we forced the issue a bit more.
"It was still about fitness but I wanted that performance and we made a few changes to inject a bit more creativity in there.
“Overall, I was pleased with the win.”
Ahead of the new campaign, it was the last opportunity for Shakespeare to assess his squad in pre-season with 17 players featuring on Filbert Way.
“We’ve had that idea in pre-season, that game time is totalled up,” the City boss explained.
“They all got about the same. We’ve had quite a busy pre-season, being in Austria and Hong Kong but now, coming back to King Power Stadium, it felt like a proper game tonight.”
Shakespeare was also thrilled to see Vardy and Iheanacho unite so effectively with the latter playing a key role in City’s second.
The Nigerian striker found space behind the Mönchengladbach backline before squaring it across goal to Vardy, who converted beyind Yann Sommer in the visitors' net.
Shakespeare added: “[Vardy] wanted to get back on the scoresheet and it was very unselfish of Kelechi to lay it on a plate for him.
"As somebody coming on to make his debut, he could easily have been a bit more selfish there.”