- Leicester City were beaten 2-1 by Aston Villa at King Power Stadium
- Manager Steve Cooper analysed City's first home defeat in 2024/25
- Facundo Buonanotte scored what proved to be a consolation for the Foxes
- There were plenty of positives despite defeat, he felt
The Foxes were more than competitive against the Villans but went behind to Amadou Onana’s first-half strike and were up against it once substitute Jhon Durán added a second. Cooper’s men fought back, with Facundo Buonanotte’s volley with a little over 15 minutes to play providing hope of a late comeback.
Coming away empty handed for the second weekend in a row, Cooper wasn’t too disheartened, despite feeling hard done by with the end result.
"It’s a really tough one to take," he began. "We’ll never accept defeat and we’ll be disappointed. There is a real feeling that it was the wrong result today. We’ve got to own the free-kick and how we concede the first goal. But it’s never a free-kick and that really changed the momentum of the game.
“It was an even game up until then and I felt we were in control in the game. But Villa have loads of quality. We needed to build a bit of territory but that will come against a team like Villa. We were really positive at half-time.
“In the first half, the chances that we gave them were from when we were in comfortable possession in decent areas. We have to be careful with that because they are so athletic in certain areas, but if Villa were going to create a proper chance, it was going to be from a counter attack, which tells you how much control we had in the game.
“The second goal was against the run of play. I know Villa had players up the pitch and at that moment they were looking like an attacking team, but it was the first time they got in our half with real numbers in the second half.
“It was an amazing reaction from the guys, it could have been a big blow, that second [goal]. It could have knocked the wind out of us, but it didn’t. We responded and made some changes.
“We were really in the ascendency and we more than took the game to Villa. You could see the way we were pressing and the territory we had up the pitch. For me, it was just a matter of time before we created more opportunities on goal. It was just about getting the second and unfortunately it didn’t come.”
The Blue Army’s vocal backing on Filbert Way was noted once more, and Cooper urged the fans to stay with the team after picking up one point from a possible nine in the opening three Premier League matches.
But with attacking forces Odsonne Édouard and Bilal El Khannouss added to the squad in the past 48 hours – the latter making his debut from the bench on Saturday – there is much optimism within the camp.
“The atmosphere and the supporters were brilliant,” the 44-year-old acknowledged. “They deserved the result and the boys will always be grateful for that. I think they could see a team who were giving everything and playing in a good way to try to get back and stay in the game.
“It’s a tough start in terms of results and you’ll never see me hiding from anything. But if I’m being honest, I also feel that I’ve seen more than enough in every game, particularly today, against a Champions League team, to think that we’re going to be alright. We just need to keep going.
“Obviously now we’ve got a few players in who we will have to get up to speed in how we work and how we play and it was good to get a few starts and debuts today. It will only improve and if we can keep lots of that and add something, we’ll be even stronger and be more competitive.”