‘We fouled City stars to stop them playing’
BEMOANS VAR DECISION IN SEMI-FINAL
LEICESTER City defender Jonny Evans has spoken of his disappointment at missing out on the Carabao Cup final.
Evans and his team-mates suffered a stoppage time defeat to Aston Villa in the semi-final second leg on Tuesday night, losing 2-1 on the night and 3-2 on aggregate.
City again dominated on the whole, but they failed to take their chances and paid the price, despite coming from behind twice across the two legs.
Evans spoke about those missed chances, as well as admitting his disappointment in VAR, which decided not to give City a penalty for what appeared to be a clear handball. “It’s not the result we wanted,” Evans told LCFC TV.
“The performance was good at times, I thought especially in the first half, we were disappointed to come in at half-time 1-0 down.
“We showed great composure to get back in the game and we felt comfortable.
“They’ve got one chance at the end and, to be fair, he’s put in a really good ball, and they’ve scored a good goal.
“It’s disappointing from our perspective.
“You’d like to see maybe one of them go in, especially Youri’s (Tielemans) effort, where it’s come off the bar.
“We could have had a penalty in the first half as well.
“At the time, I thought the VAR was definitely going to give the decision.
“His hand’s high and he’s stopped the ball going towards goal and I was baffled that it wasn’t given.”
City now switch their attention back to the Premier League and the
FA Cup. And Evans pointed out just how much the Foxes still have to play for between now and the summer.
“Every game for us towards the end of the season’s a big game,” the Northern Irishman added.
“We’ve got the FA Cup, another competition that hopefully we can progress in.
“Obviously then the league, we’ve got a big game against Chelsea at the weekend, before a little winter break.
“When we come back, every game’s really, really big for us.
“Obviously, our position in the league puts us in a position where we’ve got a lot to play for.” above,
writes Jamie Kemble.
Dean Smith’s men defeated City in dramatic fashion on Tuesday night, Trezeguet scoring the winner in stoppage time to secure a place in the Carabao Cup final.
The goal came from a fine Ahmed Elmohamady cross, but Villa’s game plan extended much further than putting balls into the Foxes’ box after realising what they needed to adjust from the 1-1 draw in the first leg.
Speaking to The Athletic, Lions defender Hause explained: “I thought we showed them too much respect at their place (in the 1-1 first-leg draw) so our focus this time was on ourselves.
“We realise how good we are and we wanted to get up against them.
“The plan was to foul them, break up play. It’s part of the game.
“We’re old enough and experienced enough to know what we have to do.
“As soon as they looked like they were going to play through we broke up the play. That was the aim.”
Matt Targett scored the opener for Villa in what would turn out to be a night to remember for the West Midlands club.
And the full-back explained how he takes advantage of team-mate Jack Grealish’s presence to get into dangerous areas.
“Teams try to double up or put three players on Jack,” he said.
“I know if I go around the outside, I can take at least one of those players out.”