The Foxes return to the Premier League when Burnley visit the King Power Stadium on Saturday following Wednesday’s 3-0 Champions League win at Club Brugge.
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The Premier League champions blew the Belgians away as they made their bow in the Champions League, romping to victory with Marc Albrighton scoring after just five minutes and Riyad Mahrez rediscovering his scoring touch with a brace.
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. At the end of the day we weren’t supposed to win the league last year and we’re not supposed to win it again this year.
“I will play the Champions League music to him before our match”, said Ranieri. “We’ll just go out and do exactly what we always do and that’s give a 110%”.
A superpower ” We played our style.
He admitted that they are still “searching to find our flow” and must be “sharper and better organised at the back”. Ludovic Butelle took Jamie Vardy out in the box, and Mahrez stepped up to slot the spot-kick for a 3-0 lead.
“If he doesn’t score, I take the neck and I crush the neck”, he joked. We scored twice [in the first half] and it was important to keep going and be attentive so we don’t make any mistakes.
“That’s up to me to get on the training field and adapt my game and come back with answers to them stopping me”, Vardy said. He was a lucky man. “Maybe he’s very exhausted of listening to the “dilly-ding dilly-dong” and he prefers to listen to the Champions League music. He was very good”. “We don’t have excuses because if they beat us, they are better than us”.
And Leicester now boast a two-point advantage at the top of the group following Porto’s 1-1 draw with Copenhagen, with the Portuguese side their next opponents on September 27.
His team may have fulfilled all the stereotypical requirements of a surprise victor defending a title during the open blows of the new Premier League season but they have the Champions League cracked and can already think about the knockout phase. Against Brugge there was a team who wanted to react after the bad defeat and it was hard for everyone.
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“He was very good”, exclaimed manager Claudio Ranieri. It’s not easy but it’s okay. “We scored very early and that gave us more confidence”.
