Marti Cifuentes acknowledged it doesn’t feel like his philosophy is fully resonating with the Leicester City squad after their second-half collapse at Bristol City.
Ahead 2-0 at the interval and seemingly cruising towards three points, City were overwhelmed by the Robins after the break, with the home side thoroughly deserving the draw they secured.
Cifuentes explained that his half-time instruction was to push for a third goal, but his players conceded less than a minute after the restart and were forced onto the defensive from that moment on.
Although they held on for a win at Derby last weekend, they also dropped deep at Pride Park and didn’t register a single attempt in the second half.
The Spaniard stated in his introductory interview that he wants his teams to chase additional goals even when leading, but it’s not an approach that has been evident on the pitch so far.
“In the half-time we spoke about the need of going for the third one as we knew it could close the game,” Cifuentes said.
“Nobody could be surprised about Bristol City trying to push in the first 15 minutes.
“We spoke about the importance of really pushing at the beginning of the second half. Unfortunately then we conceded in a situation that we spoke about how to handle at half-time.
“After the goal, it creates a momentum for them and after that, we missed the calmness, the understanding of how to control the game.
“We know in the Championship that it’s going to be difficult to control the game for 95 minutes but the second half was very different than the first half, in which we did very well.
“If you look at the last two performances, it’s difficult to say that it is (the message of pushing for more goals is pushing through). But management is not like PlayStation. It’s not easy like that.
“We are trying to change some things and sometimes emotions can be a big part of it. In the moment we concede the game changes. We need to work on why it takes just this to change the whole development of the game.
“We need to be on the front foot. When we are able to press high, when we have the ball longer and we are aggressive to attack in behind, that’s the kind of football we want to play and that’s when we’re at our best.”
Asked if it was a mentality issue, Cifuentes replied: “It’s easy to say. I understand that conceding after 50 seconds, things can change quickly, but I think we have enough experience in the changing room to understand we can do much better and I’m sure the team will do much better in the future.”