Schmeichel: Fine Margins
- Kasper Schmeichel says Leicester City’s second half performance against Arsenal did not meet their standards
- Claude Puel’s men went ahead early on, but were eventually beaten 3-1 at Emirates Stadium
- The Foxes gave their opponents too much space to create goalscoring chances after the break, according to the Denmark international
A fierce display in the first half saw the Foxes go 1-0 up in the capital after good work from Ben Chilwell lead to Héctor Bellerín turning the left-back’s cross past Bernd Leno, who went on to make a string of fine saves.
However, Mesut Özil’s neat finish and a brace from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang turned the game on its head, despite Wilfred Ndidi striking the bar before the hour mark.
“I think it’s the cliché of a game of two halves,” Schmeichel said at full-time. “We were far superior in the first half and had chances – I think their ‘keeper was probably man of the match after pulling off the saves he has.
“It’s tough to take because we were so good in the first half, but in the second half, we’ve got to do a lot better than we did. We weren’t at it. We didn’t start well and it just carried on all the way through.
“The fine margins weren’t with us and that’s unfortunate. It was a game of two halves and the second half wasn’t good enough. It’s as simple as that.”
Arsenal produced three well-worked goals to take control of the game, with German international Özil scoring one and setting up another.
“When you give good players space, they’ll produce things like that,” Schmeichel added. “I put that more down to us.
“When we didn’t give them space in the first half, we saw exactly what happened. If you give a good player space, they’ll pick passes out.
“We had a really good first half and showed everything that’s good about us, then we’ve dropped off a bit.”