Leicester City boss Marti Cifuentes labelled his side as “fragile” after a dreadful first half saw them suffer defeat at Hull.
Following a “really bad” display that was “far from the standards”, Cifuentes condemned his team’s failure to handle Hull’s intensity and implied his players didn’t track back with full commitment when the hosts broke forward on the counter.
Hull tore through City to grab their opener in the sixth minute and had doubled their advantage by the break.
Aaron Ramsey pulled one back in a better second half, and City almost equalised when Harry Winks struck the crossbar in stoppage time, but they were ultimately left regretting their poor first-half showing.
Cifuentes said: “It’s a performance that is far from the standards in the vision that I have for my team and for the club.
“The responsibility for that, we concede far too many transitions. The positioning was bad in the first half. We had to change the initial plan after 15 or 20 minutes because we couldn’t handle the transitions. It didn’t get better and so at half-time we had to correct that.
“It was bad, really bad. I cannot say anything else. The way we conceded the two goals, the whole performance of the first half was not good.
“We are not consistent enough. In a league like the Championship, it’s very difficult to have 95 minutes of dominance. It will come a moment where the opposition will have good momentum and then you need to cope with that. We are fragile in that sense.
“When the opposition get some momentum, we need to be much better in some things that are very important in football, more than just positioning.
“In the first goal, the positioning to counter-press high up the pitch, so that even if we lose the ball we can regain and create another chance, it was really bad, so that creates a long transition.
“When it’s a long transition, gentlemen, you need to track back and you need to track back at 100 per cent. And we didn’t. That’s why we conceded the first goal.
“So it’s a combination of tactical plus some mental things. I definitely need to look at myself, take responsibility and make things to improve.
“In the second half, we tried. We had the chances to get at least a draw, if not more. But I would not have been satisfied even if Winksy scored the goal or if Aaron scored the second.
“For me, the standards that I want from my team, are not those that we showed in the first half.”
The defeat means City have now secured just one victory in their last seven Championship outings, with Tuesday’s loss dropping them to eighth in the standings. They could slide two more spots if Wednesday’s results go against them.