Iheanacho: Spirit & Togetherness

First Team
07 Mar 2022
2 Minutes
Leicester City must continue to work collectively to prolong their positive recent Premier League form, says striker Kelechi Iheanacho.

- Kelechi Iheanacho reflects on Leicester City's 1-0 victory over Leeds United
- The Foxes triumphed courtesy of Harvey Barnes' second-half strike, teed up by Iheanacho
- City's No.14 says the ambition is now to continue building momentum in the Premier League
- He also offers an insight into the training ground foundations of Leicester's match-winning goal 

The Foxes made it two top-flight victories in a week on Saturday as Harvey Barnes struck the only goal of the game in a 1-0 success over Leeds United at King Power Stadium. That 67th-minute winner came after a neat one-two with Iheanacho and the Nigerian was delighted with the points. 

"It’s so, so important," City's No.14 told LCFC TV at full-time. "It’s a massive victory for us. I think we deserved the win because we worked hard in the first half to keep a clean sheet. Then, in the second half, we came out stronger and we held them and we got the goal.

"It’s a fantastic goal and a good victory for us moving forward, so we need to now keep that momentum. Obviously, we need to just focus on it one game at a time. We’ll keep our togetherness and our hunger moving forward. We just need to win one game at a time.

"At the end of the season, hopefully we’ll be up in the table and we’ll have a fantastic run."

Iheanacho highlighted how committed the squad was to trying to back up Tuesday's win at Burnley with another three points on Filbert Way.

"That’s exactly what we did," he added. "We backed that up and we need to keep the form going. We don’t need to relent. We need to keep working hard every day and keep the spirit and the togetherness. As you can see, the hunger was there in the two games. Now we have to keep that.

"We don’t want to lose focus. We have to keep winning to get up there."

The former Manchester City forward was a second-half substitute, playing his own part in a result which aids Leicester's attempts to continue climbing the standings, especially with up to three games in hand on some of the sides around them.

"I just needed to play my football," Iheanacho explained, providing an insight into manager Brendan Rodgers' words to him before joining the action. "I just needed to go and fight and help my team-mates and that’s exactly what I did.

"He encouraged me a lot and I got on the pitch, I was helping my mates out, and creating is so, so important – and so is the spirit and togetherness. We fought until the end to get the victory."

On the link-up play between him and Barnes, for the latter's fourth goal against Leeds in as many Premier League meetings, Iheanacho explained: "Obviously, in training me and Harvey always have that little connections of one-two. He knows he needs to find me. I know I have to set the ball for him.

"Whether it’s outside or inside, I know his movement, so it’s a training goal. It was impressive [from Barnes]. I just need to the set the ball perfectly for him and he just slotted it into the bottom corner. It was a fantastic goal and hopefully we’ll keep going now and get more goals."