Leicester boss Marti Cifuentes appears to have thrown his own Leicester City squad under the proverbial bus. This explanation for an atrocious display occurred in a post-match interview after the Catalan embarrassingly lost to his former club Queens Park Rangers during the current weekend. The Foxes fan base was looking ahead with renewed optimism before the game. Not to mention that the Blue Army were also looking up the English Football League Championship table towards the Playoffs, with a win guaranteeing a spot for now.
Though Saturday's trip to Shepherd's Bush in West London is better left forgotten. Although, if you're somewhat of a Leicester masochist and wish to endure the game again with us, click here to go to the match review section of our website. What I would like to do is move on to what Cifuentes did, or didn't do, as the East Midlanders suffered dramatically at Loftus Road Stadium.
Why is the City head coach entirely blaming his team and not suggesting any alternatives or taking any accountability himself? It could be argued that Cifuentes devised and deployed a terribly conceived matchday plan. When things started going wrong, he did nothing tactically in order to resolve Leicester's many issues on the field of play.
For example, even though LCFC were 4-0 down at the interval, Cifuentes made no substitutions at half-time in spite of a floundering defence and a misfiring attack. So what did the 43-year-old say after the dreadful Foxes fixture had concluded?
Marti Cifuentes rightly accuses Leicester City players of not truly competing - but takes no responsibility himself
First of all, the Leicester gaffer admitted that the defeat to QPR was 'emotionally tough to take'. Taking a swipe at his playing personnel, he labelled the performance "unacceptable".
"It was just a very bad first half – unacceptable for me, for the players, and unacceptable for our fans that travelled here... In this search for the identity that I’m talking about (having), it’s very important to cope with different scenarios. We definitely need to be better. We need to be more consistent, which isn’t easy in a league like this."PA Media
Cifuentes requested for his players to be 'better', and more consistent. Elsewhere he claimed the way his men 'competed' was insufficient.
Yet the boss did not point to his lack of motivational skills. Nor the fact that his tentative and inflexible system was inadequate and subsequently unchanged.
"What I can tell you is that we as a club, who we want to be as Leicester, we think we need to do much better in terms of not only the way we play, but the way we compete. "London World