An Important Day, Says Cifuentes

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An Important Day, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes was pleased with the togetherness on show during our 1-0 victory at Charlton Athletic in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday.

2025-08-24T09:00+01:00

by Sam Stevens

Published

24 Aug, 2025

An Important Day, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes was pleased with the togetherness on show during our 1-0 victory at Charlton Athletic in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-08-24T09:00+01:00

An Important Day, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes was pleased with the togetherness on show during our 1-0 victory at Charlton Athletic in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-08-24T09:00+01:00

An Important Day, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes was pleased with the togetherness on show during our 1-0 victory at Charlton Athletic in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-08-24T09:00+01:00

An Important Day, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes was pleased with the togetherness on show during our 1-0 victory at Charlton Athletic in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-08-24T09:00+01:00

Leicester City Manager Martí Cifuentes has credited his players for grinding out a 1-0 win at Charlton Athletic
Abdul Fatawu’s screamer was the difference in the Sky Bet Championship clash, our first away win of the new season
The Manager pointed to areas where improvements are required, but was pleased nevertheless to leave the capital with three 'important' points
He also praised the effort levels from the players to give the Blue Army something to cheer on a long away trip to The Valley

Abdul Fatawu’s brilliant 48th-minute strike secured Leicester City’s first away win of the 25/26 season – helping Cifuentes’ men recover from last weekend’s reverse at Preston North End, but also to start building on the opening-day success over Sheffield Wednesday.

The Manager was eager to highlight areas where improvements are still required after this outing at The Valley, although he was nonetheless thrilled to be returning to Leicester with an ‘important’ three points on the road.

Alongside the obvious significance of any league win, Cifuentes also wanted City to get the points for Alan ‘The Birch’ Birchenall – our legendary former midfielder and Club Ambassador who this week celebrated his 80th birthday alongside the squad in Seagrave.

“I’m very pleased to get the three points,” he said afterwards. “To win away in this league is never easy, so I’m really pleased for the team, who worked really hard to get those three points.

“I’m especially pleased for our fans, who came here to support us, and they were fantastic as well during the whole game. In terms of football performance, I’m not especially pleased. There is a lot of things that we need to improve and that’s on me.

“We have plenty of quality and I’m sure we’re going to get better, but the most important [thing] today is we set the foundation in how we want to be as a team – in terms of character and togetherness and team spirit.

“We spoke before the game that today was an important day, first of all because we had to bounce back after our defeat away (at Preston) but second as well because it was the 80th birthday of Birch [on Friday] so we wanted to give him the three points.”

Cifuentes was enthused by the connection between the players and over 3,000 members of the Blue Army who made the five-hour round trip to the capital.

He explained: “It’s the small victories today, the small points that make me feel optimistic because they showed that they care, they showed that they want to engage with our fans.

“Today, they played their part, and that’s the foundation of how we want to be as a Club. The identity on the pitch is not just the way we play, but how we are as a Football Club and I think that’s very important.”

Fatawu’s first competitive goal since making his return from a lengthy ACL absence – in some style, cutting in from the right before rocketing the ball into the far corner – was another big plus for Cifuentes. To see the Ghana international enjoying his football was pleasing for the Manager, but also the link-up play in the build-up, as his players took on board his half-time feedback.

“It's fantastic goal,” Cifuentes added. “First of all, I’m obviously happy to see Abdul laughing and smiling and enjoying again.

“This is good news for him and for the team. But secondly, we spoke at half-time about what we were missing in the first half. We were playing around in front of them, but we had to be more aggressive, to attack in behind, to make sure against these kind of teams – they play so aggressively in man-to-man situations, they are so physical – you need to set and then go and accelerate the game.

“We were missing this situation and then this is exactly what happened for the goal. Abdul obviously then gave us this extra quality with the strike, but the whole combination was exactly what we were looking for as a team.

“We need to create much more of them because, today, there was many parts of the performance that we need to get better at, 100 per cent.

“Today, we conceded too many corners, we had to defend with a low block more than what we would like, but actually it helped to create this resilience and mentality which is needed to grind it out in the Championship. None of the games will be perfect. We are still in a process. We are still in a moment where we need to make sure we learn from each other, that we improve as a team.”

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