A Deserved Win For Us, Says Maresca

- Leicester City triumphed 2-0 in Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship battle with Watford
- The Foxes remain top of the second-tier table following Jamie Vardy’s brace
- Manager Enzo Maresca came away happy with what he saw on Filbert Way
- He felt the missed chances did not affect the morale in the team

The perfect way to begin another busy period of fixtures, Jamie Vardy’s late double saw Enzo Maresca’s side return to winning ways at King Power Stadium following on from two successive Sky Bet Championship defeats.

In the main, the Italian was impressed with the way his side performed – as he has been throughout the season so far. It had looked like it wasn’t going to be City’s day, before Leicester’s talisman struck again.

“I think overall we deserved to win,” the 43-year-old reflected at full-time on Filbert Way. "We improved in the second half. In the first half it was just a matter of tempo – starting quick with free-kick and goal-kicks - if they are not man-to-man, we can start quick.

“Stephy [Mavididi] missed a chance; Jamie [Vardy] missed a chance. At the end of the day, it will happen to all of them. It’s normal. In football, you don’t always take your chances, but the most important thing is the consistency to continue to try.

“You expect missed chances apart from Jamie. It was a big chance, but the good thing is that we missed chances, but we continued. In the end, finally, we scored. As I always say, when we win or when we lose, there are many things we can improve.

“But this is a journey that started less than five months ago so thinking that in five months everything is working well is not a reality. Especially after two defeats, seeing how difficult it is to win games, we continue in the way we want to play. It’s difficult, it’s a process but we are improving.”

Replacing Kelechi Iheanacho, City’s No.9 came off the bench to score that late brace, the first prodded home at the back post, having missed two earlier opportunities, before earning and converting a stoppage-time penalty to ensure three points for the Foxes. It moves the former England international onto six league goals this term.

City's Manager continued: “When I saw Jamie missing twice, I thought it was not going to happen, but Jamie has scored goals all his life and he will continue to do so. This is the reason why he’s Jamie Vardy. He’s scored more than 100 goals in the Premier League and he has always scored goals in his life.

“You have to be there. You miss a chance and then he was there again. That was the most important thing. He missed a chance and he was in the right position. When you are in the right position inside the box you can miss and in the end you are going to find the goal.

“I was also happy with Kel’s performance. He was dropping to give us an extra man in the middle, which is what we are looking for and then he also had some chances inside the box and I don’t think by dropping we missed a striker inside the box because every time we arrived in the last third we always had five or six players in the box.”

Abdul Fatawu, Cesare Casadei and Yunus Akgün were all thrown into the action during the second half too, a sign of the depth within the squad that Maresca now has at his disposal, with the likes of Tom Cannon and Dennis Praet also now returning from injury and ready to go when required.

“Sometimes when they’re not playing, it’s not because I’m not happy," the ex-Manchester City coach explained. "It’s because it depends on the game. But probably the best thing for me in terms of as a Manager, is that you can see how he (Vardy) wants to be a leader and how he wants to win games. This is important.

“I was happy with all of them. But sometimes we see some things and we try to change. They were all good today. I saw that changing something could work. Now we have players back and slowly we need them 100 per cent fit.”