The manager gives his thoughts on the biggest victory of his tenure so far, explaining what he was so pleased about and the players he thought performed very well
Although Leicester City scored four goals for the first time under Enzo Maresca, the manager believed that their off-the-ball aggression was the “key point” in their victory over Southampton.
Jamie Vardy, Kasey McAteer, Wilfred Ndidi, and Stephy Mavididi all scored for City, who had not scored more than two goals in any of Maresca’s first seven matches in charge, but they made excellent use of the space the Saints provided against their promotion rivals on the south coast to record their biggest victory under the new manager.
It was a frantic first half which ended with City 3-1 up, and while Maresca admitted he does not like chaos, he did not agree it was that way for his team thanks to their work out of possession. James Justin and Jannik Vestergaard were among those highlighted by the manager
He said: “I don’t like basketball games. But I don’t think it was a basketball game for us. When we analyse the game, we see an opponent that wanted exactly the same as us, to keep the ball and try to win so we could not think that we could control for 95 minutes. But the way we work off the ball, the way we were aggressive, it was a key point tonight.
JJ (Justin) was very good, Jannik (Vestergaard) was very good, Harry Winks was very good, Macca (McAteer) was very good. Stephy, Jamie. Tonight, overall it has been a good performance from the players.”
Maresca has said prior to the game he wanted to see better choices in the final third, and that’s what he got, with City not only scoring four goals, but creating a lot of chances too.
“Sometimes like tonight we were more clinical, also more clear in the decision-making,” the manager added. “I said in the press conference yesterday, I said since day one that we arrive quite good in the last third but we miss the right choice and we miss to be more patient. Tonight it works better. We need to improve and to add new solutions.”
