- Leicester City have the character to recover from a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal, insists Marc Albrighton
- The Foxes lost in agonising fashion in north London with Robert Huth's own goal sealing matters
- Albrighton, though, remains confident of securing three points to help City reach the 40-point mark
- Leicester next face West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns on Saturday afternoon (3pm kick-off)
Albrighton is confident that Leicester City have the character to recover from a frustrating defeat by Arsenal to reach – and then overcome – their 40-point target in the Premier League.
Despite a spirited display in north London on Wednesday night, the Foxes succumbed late on as Nacho Monreal’s hopeful shot was deflected off Robert Huth’s thigh and beyond Kasper Schmeichel in the 86th minute to give the Gunners all three points at Emirates Stadium.
But Albrighton says City are now looking ahead to the trip to face West Bromwich Albion on Saturday as a means to get back to winning ways. With 10 league victories to their name this season, Leicester are on 37 points with five matches remaining - two away and three at King Power Stadium.
“I think we deserved at least a point,” the 27-year-old winger said at full-time. “We battled hard and we felt like we did enough to get at least a draw. It wasn’t to be and it’s tough to take but we need to get it out of our system as quickly as possible to get points on the board."
“We knew, coming here, that we weren’t going to dominate possession. We had to be careful with their runners and through balls. I think we did that for large parts of the game. We restricted them to very few chances. In the end, they had a bit of luck and, on another day, that goes wide."
"It wasn’t to be tonight. It is a different test now. I am confident that we have the characters in the dressing room to put it behind us quickly. We had a bad result here last season, too, and we had to get that out our heads fast.”
Using last season’s 2-1 reverse at Arsenal as a catalyst, City went on to lift the Premier League trophy back. That target is out of their reach this year but, with a six point gap to the bottom three, there is still much to play for.
Albrighton continued: “We won the next match [against Norwich City] and we need to do that now as well on Saturday. We need another three points at least to consider ourselves safe. We’re not hiding that fact that it’s all sailing down there now so we need to be confident and look for the victory.”