Gary Rowett has been speaking ahead of this weekend’s trip to Portman Road where the Foxes face a team vying to go second in the table
Leicester City manager Gary Rowett (Image: Leicester City FC via Getty Imag)
Gary Rowett insists he has seen a good response to Leicester City’s first defeat during his tenure in the build-up to this weekend’s daunting trip to Ipswich Town.
The Foxes gained two creditable points when they drew away to Stoke and Middlesbrough in Rowett’s first two matches, before serving up a dud in his first home game – a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Norwich City.
Speaking ahead of the jaunt to Portman Road, where Ipswich can go into the automatic promotion places for at least 24 hours if they win, Rowett says the City players have reacted positively in training and shown they ‘care’ and ‘want to do well’.
The time to do that is nigh with Rowett’s team in the Championship relegation zone with only 11 matches remaining.
Rowett said: “We’ve only been here just over a week, I’m not expecting, I’d love to see, but I’m not expecting incredible performances straight away in every single game.
“I think we’ve had two positive, one half of not so positive. That’s fine. It gives me little clues. It gives me messages about what I think we need to do.
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“I think every game that passes that we don’t get a positive result I think the players, that feeling heightens a little bit, we start to realise that games aren’t going to be here forever.
“But I don’t want to add to that. I don’t want to add to that feeling of every time we lose a game there’s no point in me walking in and having a go at the players every single time.
“I think we still have to be constructive. I think the players were left after the game in no uncertain terms of what I think we need to do better in games. But I also see a clear desire to try and improve that themselves.
“I think there’s always an easy narrative from outside that players don’t care and players are overpaid or whatever that might be. But I haven’t seen that within the group.
“I’ve seen a group that cares, that wants to do well, that maybe are just not playing quite with the same freedom and confidence that good results and a better position in the table help you to do so.
“So let’s see what happens. It’s the next game, that’s what we focus on and we learn again from whatever happens.”
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