Just when the stardust from their magical 2015/16 campaign seemed to be wearing off, however, Leicester’s cast of heroes rediscovered their swagger to defeat Club Brugge 3-1 in their first-ever Champions League outing.
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The Premier League champions needed just five minutes to score their first goal in the competition, Marc Albrighton knocking the ball into an unguarded net thanks to Hans Vanaken’s unfortunate assist. “I said we can not think about the Champions League, it’s an experience for us and we hope to go through the group and play again”.
‘I want to see how we respond, ‘ Ranieri said.
“We have started well and it gives us confidence and now we have to stay calm and put our minds to the next match on Saturday (against Burnley)”.
Danny Simpson is set to return for Leicester against Burnley after missing their Champions League win at Club Brugge with a hamstring injury. “We’ll have a meeting about Burnley now and we’ve got to get our heads switched on to them”.
“Brugge were on the back foot from very early on. Hopefully we can pick something up at the weekend, carry this form into the league and do a good job there”. “He was a lucky man!”
Mahrez made it 3-0 with a second-half penalty with Leicester, who dominated at the Jan Breydel Stadium, top of Group G after Porto and Copenhagen drew 1-1.
The goal echoed Mahrez’s first of two in Algeria’s 6-0 win over Lesotho 10 days ago and manager Claudio Ranieri said: “He tries to do something like that in every training session, also he scored in the global game with Algeria”. “Maybe he’s exhausted of dilly-ding, dilly dong and the Champions League music woke him”.
Club Brugge’s miserable night was summed up when the woodwork denied Izquierdo from grabbing a consolation goal, with Leicester also able to celebrate a clean sheet on a famous night in its history.
Drinkwater was noticeably under less pressure then in the rough and tumble of the Premier League which enabled him to influence the match as he pleased. “It was a good victory and I think everybody was happy and now our focus is the Premier League”. They played into the Foxes’ hands as Mahrez slowly began to exploit the extra space and Jamie Vardy remained an irritant.
“After two minutes we could have scored and the game was totally different”, lamented their coach Michel Preud’homme.
Bet365 make Leicester 11/8 favourites to win this one with Brugge 2/1 outsiders.
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They played their first game against Club Brugge in the group stage and won the game easily by 0-3 away from home.
