Far From The Level, Says Cifuentes

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Far From The Level, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes acknowledged that his side’s first-half performance at Hull City was not up to standard, as we fell to a 2-1 defeat in Humberside.

2025-10-22T09:00+01:00

by Sam Jones

Published

22 Oct, 2025

Far From The Level, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes acknowledged that his side’s first-half performance at Hull City was not up to standard, as we fell to a 2-1 defeat in Humberside.

Sam Jones

2025-10-22T09:00+01:00

Far From The Level, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes acknowledged that his side’s first-half performance at Hull City was not up to standard, as we fell to a 2-1 defeat in Humberside.

Sam Jones

2025-10-22T09:00+01:00

Far From The Level, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes acknowledged that his side’s first-half performance at Hull City was not up to standard, as we fell to a 2-1 defeat in Humberside.

Sam Jones

2025-10-22T09:00+01:00

Far From The Level, Says Cifuentes

Martí Cifuentes acknowledged that his side’s first-half performance at Hull City was not up to standard, as we fell to a 2-1 defeat in Humberside.

Sam Jones

2025-10-22T09:00+01:00

Leicester City lost 2-1 to Hull City on Tuesday night
Substitute Aaron Ramsey scored the Foxes’ goal
Martí Cifuentes gave his take on a first defeat in nine
It wasn’t the performance required, the Manager said

Strikes from Lewis Millar and Joe Gelhardt saw the hosts move into a healthy lead before half-time at MKM Stadium and while a rejuvenated Foxes side gave everything in the second period, it wasn’t enough to claim a share of the spoils.

Giving ourselves too much to do in the second half, having conceded twice in the opening half an hour, a first defeat in nine matches leaves us eighth in the Sky Bet Championship table.

“I’m very annoyed,” the Manager admitted after full-time on Tuesday. “I take responsibility because the performance, in the first half especially, was far from our standards. We didn’t start the game well and it was hard to accept the way we conceded these two goals.

“The whole first half was far from the level. In the second half, we tried to react and there was definitely an improvement. It’s true that some situations could have been better and could have given us perhaps a point today, but I want to be critical with myself because we should have done better.

“We responded but that’s not the way we should be as a team. We conceded two goals and needed to react and we should be much stronger. I’m disappointed because we took some positions during the week about trying to get some rotation.

“I need to look at myself for why it didn’t work because we had some good positioning in the first half to really create chances, to counter press and we allowed them to have too many counters. That was probably one of the huge reasons why, in the first half, we were far from the level.

“The first goal is a good example of how our positioning is not good to counter press in a situation where we are quite high in the pitch and should allow us to counter press properly and regain the ball high up the pitch.

“Unfortunately, we were far too passive and it was bad positioning that allowed them to have a long transition and then with those situations that might happen, we need to track back better. It’s a combination of mental things and tactical things. I need to analyse why we were poor.”

Aaron Ramsey’s second goal in as many games after coming on as a half-time substitute was a bright moment in an otherwise difficult evening, though in what became an open game full of transitions and breakaways, we created a handful of other good opportunities to equalise late on.

“In the second half, we put pressure on,” the 43-year-old continued. “We hit the crossbar from Winsky (Harry Winks), we had another header from Aaron to score the second. It was a difficult decision to leave him out of the XI because he had a good performance (against Portsmouth) scoring a good goal.

“As a manager, that’s what you expect when you make these kind of decisions, that the whole team can respond in a positive way. Unfortunately, today that was not the case because the first half we gave Hull too big an advantage for us to chase in the second.

“We need to look at ourselves and in a game with small edges, as most of the games are in the Championship, every situation can change the end of the game but the reality is that we need to be better than this.

“We had 12 shots in the second half to score one goal. We need to create more chances and we need to make 20-25, whatever is needed in order to score more goals. That is my job, instead of focusing on things that I cannot control.”

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