Leicester’s defence of their Premier League title began with a shock defeat at newly promoted Hull, who are managerless and relegation favourites.
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“I thought the players had it in them to produce something but all credit to the football players because they showed a lot of the determination, ” Phelan told Sky Sports.
Hull’s supporters have blamed owners Assem and Ehad Allam for a lack of investment in the squad, and graffiti calling for them to sell the club was found daubed on the outer walls of the stadium on Saturday morning.
But they cheered their team to victory on the pitch, with Adama Diomande and Robert Snodgrass scoring the hosts’ goals either side of Riyad Mahrez’s penalty for Leicester. “That’s something we’ve got to get used to”, said full-back Danny Simpson.
“We started well. We created chances to score, but at the end of the first half, we conceded a goal from a corner”. They were smarter than us. It is important for us to fight.
“We made a big effort but it was individual effort, not like a team”, said Ranieri. “Our strength is when everybody is connected”.
While Ranieri refused to fault Leicester’s work-rate he believes they did not display sufficient team work, an attribute that was crucial to their success. Sergio Aguero scored from the penalty spot early in the game. McNair only joined from Manchester United during the week and the Northern Irish worldwide turned into his own net in the eighty-seventh minute from a Jesus Navas cross, after coming on as a substitute.
Memorably, during Kobenhavn’s 2014-15 Europa League campaign, he demonstrated an ability to keep his team ticking over intelligently, while effectively seeking to change the angle of the attack and play in more offensively minded team mates with longer balls.
“Today, there was a big effort, but not together”.
According to reports, this is the offer the Foxes asked Arsenal to pay after they rejected their £30million at the start of the week.
The Foxes look to have accepted the £12m third bid for the left-back after turning down two previous offers for the utility player. Jamie Vardy and Ahmed Musa have pace to burn up top but Hull, without a permanent manager since Steve Bruce’s summer departure, defended deep and stopped the space in behind.
“This club has been getting taken over for about eight to 12 months – on and off, on and off – but apparently there’s new buyers out there”. “It’s been on-off. I want to leave that to the powers that be”.
“It’s not often in the Premier League you have a 0-0 game, you have to score goals, our guys have to learn and learn quickly, it’s hard for them but they managed to keep going”. But with a trip to Leicester to come next weekend, Wenger needs Koscielny to recover match fitness quickly if he is to avoid having to make an emergency move in the transfer market.
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The defeat will raise further questions about how City can replace influential midfielder and current players’ player of the year N’Golo Kante, who has joined Chelsea, but Ranieri said everyone should forget Kante.
