Share

Claudio Ranieri: This is how I’ll keep Riyad Mahrez firing this season

The Leicester fairytale continued as they enjoyed the best possible introduction to Champions League football with a 3-0 victory over Club Brugge at the Jan Breydel stadium on Wednesday night.

Advertisement

Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri credited the Champions League music with waking up Riyad Mahrez following his two goals in Wednesday’s win over Club Brugge.

Claudio Ranieri believes Riyad Mahrez is exhausted of his “dilly ding, dilly dong” motivational song.

Mahrez doubled their lead with a curling free-kick in the 29th minute, and then added a penalty just after the hour mark to clinch all three points in Leicester’s Group G opener.

“I don’t know if Slimaini is ready for 90 minutes but it’s important for him to understand the spirit of the Premier League”, Ranieri said during his pre-match press conference on Friday. They tried to find a right solution but it was very hard.

However, last night in Bruges, Claudio Ranieri’s men brushed aside their hosts, thanks to goals from Marc Albrighton and a Riyad Mahrez brace.

He has also earned an England call-up along the way and starred in this week’s historic 3-0 win Champions League win against Club Brugge.

“Slimani is an intelligent player and I’m sure if he plays he will be fine.”other week”.

“Now we have to stay calm and put our mind to the next match on Saturday”.

“Maybe the music woke him (Mahrez) up”.

Tottenham’s Champions League campaign began disappointingly as they slumped to a 2-1 defeat against AS Monaco before an English record for a home crowd of 85,011 at Wembley.

“Now we play the first match, there are another five”.

“It’s a big test against everyone because with Rostov we are the only two teams never to play in the Champions League. Maybe he was very, very exhausted of listening to dilly ding, dilly dong, maybe he preferred the Champions League music”, said Ranieri, reverting to a classic catchphrase. Shinji Okazaki didn’t dress for Leicester’s midweek Champions League clash despite being fit, so there’s a good chance the Japanese worldwide starts fresh in Claudio Ranieri’s starting XI against Burnley. But if not, we want to get in the Europa League – that’s the target.

Ranieri revealed later that he had wanted Islam Slimani to take the spot-kick but Mahrez made a decision to shoulder the responsibility.

“The match could have changed face if they scored at the beginning, but they lost the chance and our first chance we scored a goal”.

“We have to find different ways to win games now too”.

Like we saw last year and the year before with Leicester, it’s incredible what one win can do for this team’s confidence.

Advertisement

Despite the low attendance, many Foxes fans will be forced to watch the game in bars around the town as their allocation is full and many have travelled with tickets.

Getty
Mahrez rediscovered the form that helped make Leicester champions in their group opener