adminRussell Martin admitted Leicester City were not “hungry enough” to fight during the opening 25 minutes of their League One defeat to Burton Albion.
The Foxes fell 2-0 behind inside the opening 25 minutes at the King Power Stadium, with Matthew Dennis and Kgaogelo Chauke finding the net. Matters got worse for Martin’s side when Oliver Skipp was shown a straight red card for a challenge on Curtis Tilt.
Summer signing Wes Burns pulled a goal back on the brink of half-time, before Harry Howell and Tommy Watson came closest to equalising after the break. The defeat means City have failed to win their opening two games in the third tier.
“The first 25 minutes,” Martin said when asked where it went wrong. “You can’t give teams a head start, and we did, we gave them two and had a man sent off. We can’t afford to do that against any opponent, anywhere we go.
“I said to the players, the level of humility, running, courage and fight we showed in the second half with 10-men, we have to be there all the time, otherwise you get hurt, which we did today.
“I’m really disappointed at the goals we conceded because they’re really poor from our perspective. One team, as basic as it sounds, really wanted it in the first 25 minutes and were hungry to fight and we weren’t, definitely not hungry enough.
“Then after that, we were, but when we’re down to 10-men, there’s nothing to lose in mentality.”
He added: “We have to have a really honest conversation about that. I have to take responsibility for it as a manager, if I haven’t prepared the team psychologically well enough, we have to look at why.
“The fundamentals of the game always have to be the fundamentals, regardless of style of play and we can’t play in the way we want to without them. And they just weren’t there in the first 25 minutes.
“We’ve already watched the goal back as a group and there are some bits that are not going to be us moving forward, so we have to make sure that’s the worst 25 minutes we’ll experience this season.”
City were forced to play with 10 men for more than an hour at the King Power Stadium but still caused Burton problems in the final stages. However, they were unable to rescue a point despite producing a much-improved performance after the break.
“I think the players did great to be so dominant with 10-men because that’s not easy, but it’s so hard for us at that point. More aggression, more running, more fight in the first 25 minutes and you set yourself up for a good performance.
“Without that, whatever you do is going to be tough.”
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