CITY GO OUT OF EUROPA LEAGUE
DEFEAT IN NAPOLI MEANS IT IS EUROPA CONFERENCE PLAY-OFF NEXT FOR FOXES
LEICESTER City will drop down to the Europa Conference League after a 3-2 defeat away to Napoli saw them finish third in their Europa League group.
The result – and Spartak Moscow’s 1-0 win in Warsaw – means City will play in a Conference league knock-out round play-off in February.
An end-to-end encounter saw four goals shared in the first half in Naples, where the hosts led 2-0 courtesy of strikes from Adam Ounas and Eljif Elmas.
However, the Foxes responded through Jonny Evans and academy graduate Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s first goal for the club.
Elmas struck again early in the second half and, despite Brendan Rodgers’ side having chances to get themselves level once more, it proved decisive.
But even then, City could have been reprieved had Legia Warsaw not missed an injury time penalty against Spartak.
Rodgers said: “Over the course of the six games, we’ve attacked well but we’ve not been good enough defensively.
“Offensively very good, but we lacked a determination off the ball to stop them scoring.
“That’s been our downfall this evening, not just tonight but over the course of the competition.
“We went two goals down and it could have been a challenge for us, but we came back, Kiernan gets a fantastic second goal.
“That put us in a good place, and we said at half-time, we needed to be tight and aggressive.
“The third goal is a basic goal to concede.
“We had good chances with James and Vardy’s header.
“We have to defend, that’s critical, because you can’t score three or four goals every game.”