Simon disappointed with first-half display
Simon Grayson was disappointed with his players’ performance this evening and paid credit to Nigel Pearson’s Leicester side.
The Foxes scored either side of half-time courtesy of two stunning strikes from Anthony Knockaert and failed to test Kasper Schmeichel during the 90 minutes.
“We have come up against a very good team tonight who are high on confidence following their win on the weekend,” Simon told htafc.com.
“That doesn’t get away from how poor we were in the first half – there were some fireworks going off in the dressing room at half-time. Tonight should have been a game where we bounced back against the favourites for the division, but we didn’t get anywhere near them, it was like men against boys at times."
He continued: “Tonight Leicester did to us what we had been doing to teams previously. It is a learning curve for the players and we now need to prepare for Saturday. I could make excuses and say that we have got four players out, but tonight the players out there had an opportunity to stake a claim for their place in the team. Too many people underperformed.”
Town lacked creativity in the final third and struggled to break down a resolute Leicester defence.
“We didn’t affect Leicester,” said Simon. “We didn’t stop them playing like we did when we played Blackpool and Sheffield Wednesday. We didn’t do the ugly side of the game tonight and then when we had the ball we were slow and pedestrian in our play. The shirts are certainly up for grabs ahead of Saturday when we will definitely have Joel Lynch and Jermaine Beckford available.
“We aren’t going to be having any crisis meetings; I have just looked at the table and we are still in a good position. I said at Blackpool that there will be a couple of performances down the line where we won’t play well because the Championship is a tough division.”
Adam Hammill and James Vaughan missed tonight’s game through injury and Simon was unsure as to their availably ahead of Birmingham.
“They have got half a chance in making the game. If they don’t then someone else will have to lift their game and make the difference. If we had played well in the last two games."
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