Rowett: Positives But We Can Still Improve

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Rowett: Positives But We Can Still Improve

Gary Rowett wants Leicester City to find an extra gear in order to turn draws into wins after a goalless stalemate at Watford on Saturday.

2026-03-22T09:00+00:00

by Sam Jones

Published

22 Mar, 2026

Rowett: Positives But We Can Still Improve

Gary Rowett wants Leicester City to find an extra gear in order to turn draws into wins after a goalless stalemate at Watford on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2026-03-22T09:00+00:00

Rowett: Positives But We Can Still Improve

Gary Rowett wants Leicester City to find an extra gear in order to turn draws into wins after a goalless stalemate at Watford on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2026-03-22T09:00+00:00

Rowett: Positives But We Can Still Improve

Gary Rowett wants Leicester City to find an extra gear in order to turn draws into wins after a goalless stalemate at Watford on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2026-03-22T09:00+00:00

Rowett: Positives But We Can Still Improve

Gary Rowett wants Leicester City to find an extra gear in order to turn draws into wins after a goalless stalemate at Watford on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2026-03-22T09:00+00:00

It finished 0-0 between Watford and City at Vicarage Road on Saturday
We had chances to win the game but take a point in the fight for survival
Gary Rowett was pleased with aspects of the performance in his assessment of the game
City now sit 22nd in the Sky Bet Championship heading into an international break

The Foxes took a point from the trip to Vicarage Road but it could have been all three had one of several good chances found the net, including a Patson Daka first-half penalty, which was tipped onto the post by Egil Selvik.

Nevertheless, it’s a step in the right direction for Rowett’s men, who kept a second clean sheet in three and move up one place to 22nd in the Sky Bet Championship table, now sitting one point from safety heading into the international break.

“I think we should have won it, for different reasons,” City’s Manager reflected, speaking post-match. “We’ve created much bigger moments, much better chances. The home team created very little, other than lots of balls in the box and big strikers to go and cause us problems from set pieces.

“But we defended our box really well today, that’s a big tick. It’s another clean sheet. I thought Jamaal [Lascelles] coming in gave us a real solidity and experience. Ricky (Ricardo Pereira) coming back in as well, I thought he performed really well. There’s lots of good things.

“Jak (Stolarczyk) had a couple of saves, not too much, but when you’ve got a 6ft 5ins centre forward and bring him off for another 6ft 5ins centre forward and late on you put another one on, you’re going to keep testing us and I thought we dealt with that well.

“It would have been easier not to deal with that direct play, which was something they clearly felt they could exploit and I was quite pleased with that bit. Of course we had the penalty moment. We have to capitalise. But I thought we were pretty comfortable and we got into some good positions.”

After bringing on several attacking substitutes to impact the game in the final third, the closing stages of the contest saw Leicester throw everything at the hosts trying to find the winner, but came away with just a point to show for the efforts.

The 52-year-old continued: “We moved the ball well [in the] first half and had about 10-15 minutes [in the] second half where we allowed them to start creating direct moments and the game swung a little bit too much. Then we just started to get a little bit of composure back and got into some good areas.

Photo 1/15

Match imagery from Vicarage Road as we drew with the Hornets in the Sky Bet Championship.

“Overall, I’m pleased with a lot of things and aspects of our game, but incredibly disappointed that we’re sat here at the moment, in the way that we’ve played, particularly in the four away games, to have only one won game out of the seven. It’s almost unfathomable.

“If you look at the Stoke game, we should have won, a few of the other games and today, we should have won, we had some really good chances.

“Pato (Daka) had a header which he probably should score, Divine [Mukasa] had a good chance, Ben [Nelson] had a chance at the end that I think he actually did quite well to get on target, and I think the game is very different. At that moment, you’re just thinking please find a way to win it at the death.

“There’s frustration that we couldn’t quite do that, because we’ve created opportunities, but it’s quite an innovative chance for Ben, he’s tried almost a scorpion kick but caught it too well and it’s gone straight at the ‘keeper.

“Maybe that’s where you have that lack of luck at the moment when in these positions. I don’t think I can ask the players to do much more, other than finish those moments and win the game, which I think we should have done.”

Heading into a week without a competitive fixture, Rowett hopes to bring several absentees back into the fold sooner rather than later, while he saved the last word for the travelling support, with a sold out away end backing the side in Hertfordshire.

“I’d expect Jannik [Vestergaard] to be back after the break,” he revealed. “I’d expect Aaron Ramsey to be close to being back after the break. Jamaal will be much better for that moment. We’ve got quite a few players coming back quite late from the break so we’ll have to see.

“The fans were in great voice again. Hopefully they can at least see a team fighting for points and trying to do everything they can. This is not a team that doesn’t care. That’s been the outside narrative, but they’re working hard and we just need to find that killer instinct in the box and hopefully we can find that after the break.

“They (the fans) were brilliant today. The home fans have been brilliant. It’s been hard for them not seeing enough wins and the two performances which shape the period. If you look at the first 40 minutes against Norwich and all the away performances, there’s actually been a lot of positives. I definitely think we can improve as a team but at the moment we haven’t improved quite enough.”

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