Leicester City ended their losing run with a worse performance than in any of their recent defeats, according to manager Enzo Maresca after a hard-fought 1-0 victory at Sunderland.
City claimed victory at the Stadium of Light to keep their five-point cushion to third intact, Jamie Vardy scoring the only goal of the game early on. But bar the first 15 minutes, City were far from their best, and in a difficult second half they were reliant on goalkeeper Mads Hermansen to keep out a few testing long-distance efforts.
Maresca felt City performed at a higher level in their losses to Middlesbrough, Leeds and QPR that had preceded the trip to Sunderland and seen the table-toppers reined in by their promotion rivals. But in not doing so well against the Black Cats, City did get the chance to show they can win ugly, something Maresca sees as a valuable attribute for the run-in.
“After the three defeats in a row, it was important to win the game tonight,” Maresca said. “Probably tonight’s game has been the worst. Especially second half, we didn’t play well. Or at least we didn’t play in the way we played in the three games we lost.
“But at the end, football is about taking chances. We created many chances in the three defeats that we didn’t score. Tonight, again, we started the first half with many clear chances that we didn’t score. But fortunately we scored through Jamie.
