- Leicester City suffered a last-gasp 2-1 defeat at the hands of Newcastle United
- The Foxes took the lead in Sunday’s Premier League fixture at St. James’ Park
- Ademola Lookman was on target before Bruno Guimarães’ brace for the Magpies
- Manager Brendan Rodgers gave his reaction to LCFC TV post-match
The Foxes took the lead in the North East, via Ademola Lookman’s smart finish on 19 minutes, but the Magpies levelled when Bruno Guimarães forced the ball home at the other end.
Despite being in the ascendancy for the majority of the second half, the visitors were unable to create another opening and it was Eddie Howe’s side who snatched the three points at the death.
In his post-match assessment of proceedings, Rodgers reflected to LCFC TV: “Performance-wise I was pretty pleased. I think we controlled a lot of the game with some excellent passages of play and we took the lead.
“I’m disappointed with the goal we conceded but we looked a really good side in terms of the energy and the intensity in the game and some of our football.
“We just failed to control the ball at the end and for some reason we decided to kick it long in the last throes of the game and it’s just purely down to game management.”
Further analysing the performance, which came less than 72 hours after reaching the Club's first European semi-final, City’s manager was satisfied with the majority of his side’s play, though it was in vain as they slipped to a first defeat in six matches, remaining ninth in the league standings as a result.
“We controlled the game; we pressed the game well,” the Northern Irishman continued. “Our energy was good, and we got into some really good areas. Our movement and some of our positioning was very good. We had intensity in our press, and we were forcing them back.
“We maybe just lacked a little bit of finesse or a little bit of quality on the last pass, but in the main, we arrived where we wanted to arrive, and they were sinking back into their shape.
“Our physicality was good in the game, and we looked like the team to win the game, especially in the second half, but we’ve just got to control the game better in that last sector.”
The Foxes’ early goal was a well-worked training ground move involving Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Ayoze Pérez, while there were also other positives to take from the game and now an opportunity to bounce back in the Premier League at Everton on Wednesday evening.
The 49-year-old added: “Chris [Davies] deserves a huge amount of credit. He works tirelessly looking at ways in which we can take advantage of the opposition setup so that worked really well for us and gave us a good foothold in the game.
“It was a game that we deserved a minimum of a point from so we just have to take it on the chin. It wasn’t like we had lost the game and can look at it and think we didn’t play well. I thought we were excellent in the game.
“We’re straight into Wednesday, we’ll prepare for that. It’ll be a good atmosphere and let’s go and pick up the three points there.”