Leicester’s record of four points from four games is the joint-second lowest return for reigning Premier League champions; tied with Chelsea who had four at the same stage last season, and one better than Blackburn who had scored just 3 in 1995-96.
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Marc Albrighton also got a goal on a ideal night for the Premier League champions as they ran out 3-0 winners against a poor Club Brugge side.
Unable to satisfactorily replace midfield dynamo N’Golo Kante, Leicester have struggled to compete in the centre of the park – a failing that was particularly brutally highlighted in last weekend’s 4-1 deconstruction at the hands of Liverpool.
“I said to the players when you hear the Champions League music it charges the battery and makes you fight”, he told BT Sport.
“It was important to show the reaction after the Liverpool defeat”, said Ranieri.
“After this, we were more calm and we could play our own match”.
There will be tougher matches to come for Leicester – their next fixture is a home tie against Group G favourites Porto on 27 September – but the romp against Brugge will have given the Foxes the self-belief that they’re good enough for the Champions League. “Maybe at the beginning we surprised them”.
As a European experience, it could not have been better. “We started well, and that gives us confidence”.
The iconic Wembley arch was lit up in Tottenham’s blue and white, but that was the extent of the home comforts for Mauricio Pochettino’s side as they paid the price for a sloppy first-half display.
However, Marc Albrighton – scorer of the opening goal in picturesque Bruges – believes that his team’s European win may be exactly what they need ahead this matchup at King Power.
“Now we play the first match, there are another five”.
Now Ranieri’s side were able to play to their strengths on the counter-attack, and the Club Brugge defence could not cope with the searing pace of Jamie Vardy.
Ranieri seemed to acknowledge Mahrez’s slightly underwhelming domestic form by saying: “Maybe the music woke him up!”
Perhaps most pleasing was the performance of Mahrez, who has yet to reach the same heights of his PFA Player of the Season-winning campaign of 2015-16 in the early weeks of this term.
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It also capped Albrighton’s revival after he was released by Aston Villa in 2014 before helping the Foxes to the title in May as his former club won just three games and were relegated from the top flight for the first time since 1987. Maybe he is very exhausted of listening to dilly-ding, dilly-dong and prefers the Champions League music!
