Russell Martin said he is to have ‘honest conversations’ after 10-man Leicester City lose 2-1 to Burton Albion.
Matthew Dennis put Burton ahead after just 5 minutes, then Kgaogelo Chauke doubled the Brewers’ lead 20 minutes later.
Shortly after, Oliver Skipp was then shown a red card for a challenge on Curtis Tilt. Leicester got one back just before half time, Wes Burns getting no the scoresheet.
Leicester came close in the second half as they looked to mount a comeback, but Burton held on to send those in the away end home happy.
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When asked when it all went wrong, Martin said, as per Leicester Mercury and BBC Sport Leicester: “The first 25 minutes. You can’t give teams a head start, and we did, we gave them two and had a man sent off. We can’t afford to do that against any opponent, anywhere we go.
“I said to the players, the level of humility, running, courage and fight we showed in the second half with 10-men, we have to be there all the time, otherwise you get hurt, which we did today.
“I’m really disappointed at the goals we conceded because they’re really poor from our perspective. One team, as basic as it sounds, really wanted it in the first 25 minutes and were hungry to fight and we weren’t, definitely not hungry enough.
“Then after that, we were, but when we’re down to 10-men, there’s nothing to lose in mentality.
“We have to have a really honest conversation about that. I have to take responsibility for it as a manager, if I haven’t prepared the team psychologically well enough, we have to look at why.
“The fundamentals of the game always have to be the fundamentals, regardless of style of play and we can’t play in the way we want to without them. And they just weren’t there in the first 25 minutes.
“We’ve already watched the goal back as a group and there are some bits that are not going to be us moving forward, so we have to make sure that’s the worst 25 minutes we’ll experience this season.
“I think the players did great to be so dominant with 10-men because that’s not easy, but it’s so hard for us at that point. More aggression, more running, more fight in the first 25 minutes and you set yourself up for a good performance.
“Without that, whatever you do is going to be tough.”
Burton Albion head coach Gary Bowyer said: “Yeah, what a good start, unbelievable the reception to come out there and and and see them in the corner. Like you say, yesterday we put that message out, don’t know what the actual number ended up being, 1.200 / 1.300.
“But the noise that they made and to see them all in Burton colours was terrific and then it was important that we celebrated with them at the end because we heard three little birds banging out and we heard Albion and Brewers. So, yeah, they don’t I keep saying it, they must realise how they get us over the line.”
Interviewer: “I’m not entirely sure it was it was in your plans, but obviously you swap sides at the start of the game and then you’re shooting in front of those away fans and that quick start, they get the reaction and the joy that that they feel is deserve.”
Bowyer: “It was a brilliant start. Yeah, it was really positive from us, we you know they got a wonderful manager, we got wonderful resources. Um we knew we’d have to be you know really spot on with every bit of detail today and you know we could have been better with the ball second half but um the fight, the spirit, everything that you know that’s really important to to us the values um really came out for them.”
Check out more of the interview below…
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