SO UPSET AT DEFEAT
FIRST GOAL FOR BRIGHT SPOT FOR
CITY THE ONLY
LEICESTER City’s Europa League exit was very upsetting for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, the midfielder demoralised by yet another game of failings.
City dropped out of the competition after a 3-2 defeat to Napoli on Thursday night and will now compete in the Europa Conference League after Christmas.
At Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, Dewsbury-Hall scored his first goal for his hometown club with an excellent volley, City coming from two down to be level at the break before conceding in the second half and blowing several chances to equalise.
By falling two goals behind inside 25 minutes, City did not have the opportunity to play the game they want to, Dewsbury-Hall said, where they can dominate and force the opposition to attack them.
“I’m mightily disappointed, to be honest,” said the 23-year-old.
“I really, really wanted to go through. It was in our hands, we knew that. All we had to do was win the game and we were through.
“It’s silly mistakes. We’re not defending well enough and it’s cost us. We’re relying on scoring two or three goals to win games – you can’t do that every game, especially in this competition.
“It’s disappointing because we showed good character in the first half to get it back to a draw, but then we need to push on from there.
“They were shocked and we had the momentum. It’s really disappointing, and at the moment it’s very upsetting.
“That’s the only positive is that we do show resilience, but I don’t think we should be in those positions in the first place.
“We know we’re good enough to dominate teams and win games, and the fact we have to come from behind, it’s not what we want to do.
“We want to be in front and them having to come on to us. That’s the way we want to play.
“We know we had more than enough to win this group, so it’s underwhelming that we’ve not gone through.”
With three goals conceded, City are now on a streak of 21 games without a clean sheet against Premier League or European opposition, a run that goes back four months.
The defence was the focus of Brendan Rodgers’ post-match team talk.
“He’s upset and disappointed with us,” Dewsbury-Hall said.
“He’s said we need to look at things and nail down what we know we’re good at, get back to basics and stop giving away silly mistakes.
“He’s disappointed because he knows how good we are and how good we can be.
“It’s just a tough period at the moment where we need to dust ourselves down and try to bring the confidence back, because when we’re playing with that confidence then we’re a real top team.”
Speaking about his goal, the midfielder said: “It was a special moment, but I would have substituted that for the win.”