Leicester City manager Marti Cifuentes pinpointed the critical factor in Preston North End’s 2-1 triumph over his Leicester City team at Deepdale.
Strikes from Alfie Devine and Milutin Osmajic secured the victory for the Lilywhites, and the Spaniard, previously at the helm of QPR, observed a pattern in both of the hosts’ goals.
Speaking about the display, Cifuentes said: “Not a good performance. Of all the things we said could happen in terms of the way they would play, the way they would attack, it went exactly according to what we said and unfortunately we did not control it. We are disappointed about both goals, we should have defended them much better.
“When you start against a team like this who want to start with energy, play in behind – we knew it was key, the runs of Osmajic in behind, the eights running from the second line – we spoke about how to defend those and unfortunately, the first goal is poor.
“It was not easy for us to break the low block, during big parts of the first half we had to move the ball much faster because they were playing with eight or nine behind the ball and then it requires a quick one-v-one. We could not find those areas, the ball movement and the tempo was not fast enough to create those one-v-one situations.
“At half time we tried to change a couple of things. I think it worked slightly better but the game became a little bit longer. When we did the most difficult thing which was to get the (equaliser) and to put pressure on, we definitely got into situations to take the lead but then we conceded a poor counter.
“It’s a simple situation and we should have dealt with it much better. (We) needed to move the ball better, have better positions. Unfortunately, our counter-pressing was not good enough and we conceded on long transitions. The defence, especially in the second goal, was poor.”
Michael Smith has been at Deepdale for less than a month, but Cifuentes’ remarks indicate that his partnership with Osmajic in the forward duo is showing early promise.
“One of Preston’s strengths is that they play with these two strikers,” said Cifuentes. “Smith is a big target and Osmajic is a runner and they have good relations, so then you need to always have this balance between when you attack a deep block, how many players you commit – but then also how ready you are to defend counters.
“That was a big part of the first half. In the second half this was even more clear, again it is part of the game that you will concede counters. It is impossible to avoid them in 95 minutes, the long passes, but it happened too often, mainly because we didn’t attack positionally with the quality that we should have.”