It would be “stupid” for Dean Smith to lose faith in Leicester City’s survival bid despite the dire situation they find themselves in and the unappealing fixture schedule. Defeat to Liverpool on Monday night means City remain two points from safety, and with just two matches left to play. Not only do they need points, but they need their opponents to slip up too. City could be relegated at St James’ Park depending on how their rivals get on, and Smith will have another weekend of watching the results come in, with his side not playing until Monday for the fourth week in a row. Over the weekend, Nottingham Forest take on Arsenal, Everton are at Wolves, while Leeds travel to West Ham.
Dean Smith said: “Of course I do (believe City can stay up). I’d be stupid if I sat here and said no. I don’t like playing Monday nights, I must admit. I don’t think it’s right that in a relegation battle that we should be playing four consecutive Mondays. But we’ll certainly know what we need to do at St James’ Park next week. It’s not tough at all (to see other results come in). I can’t control what happens to anybody else. The only thing that matters is what we do. We don’t get out of the bottom three if we don’t get points ourselves, so we concentrate fully on ourselves.”
Sitting 19th and two points from safety, Smith and City are in exactly the same position as when the new manager arrived in mid-April. He has earned five points from six games in charge so far.
Dean Smith added: “It was a big task coming in with eight games to go and it’s a big task now. We’re two points away from it. It’s tough and we’ve got a tough game coming up now. We’ll look at Newcastle and look to get something there. All we can do is take it one game at a time. There’s no point looking at other teams and what they do, because we don’t move from second bottom unless we get points ourselves.”
