I’ve got nothing to prove, insists Puel

LEICESTER boss Claude Puel insists he had nothing to prove to the club’s fans or hierarchy after his side ended a poor league run by defeating Chelsea.

City had won only two of their previous 10 Premier League games and Puel had baffled many fans by choosing to rest a number of first-team players for Tuesday’s Carabao Cup defeat to Manchester City.

Reports yesterday even suggested that a poor run of results over the Christmas period could see the Frenchman lose his job, but victory at Stamford Bridge took Leicester up to ninth in the table.

‘I have nothing to justify,’ Puel said. ‘I am the manager of my team and try always to do my best to get the right balance to protect some players, get the best out of other players, and put a team on the pitch with the ability to win the game.

‘We lost on penalties against City, but we had a good feeling about our performance.’

There has also been speculation that Puel has a difficult relationship with forward Jamie Vardy, who admitted this week that the manager’s style of play is not suited to his individual game.

Asked if this victory showed that he still has the faith of the dressing room, Puel said: ‘I have no comment about this. I made my work. It’s not all the time easy.

‘It’s important to analyse the games and not just to look at the ranking in the table.

‘If we analyse it since the beginning of the season, we’ve had fantastic games and performances sometimes without consistency

‘But always we kept the quality and a fantastic mentality.’