Ayoze Perez’s honesty cost Leicester City, manager Brendan Rodgers said after his side were thumped at West Ham. The Spaniard received a straight red card just before half-time in the game’s most significant moment, planting his studs on Pablo Fornals’ shin. West Ham then capitalised on their man advantage to turn a 1-0 lead into a 4-1 victory. While Rodgers did not dispute the awarding of the red card once Perez had made the lunge, he said that his winger should have gone down after a push from Aaron Cresswell, rather than stretched to try to retain possession.
Brendan Rodgers said: “My thoughts were that it was a foul (on Perez). Ayo shows honesty, he tries to stay on his feet, but then he’s unbalanced. You’ll see a lot of players go over in that moment, and there’s no issue then, he gets the foul and we take the ball. But he tries to stay on his feet and then he’s off balance because he’s been clipped, and then he’s stretching. If you see it on the telly in that moment, on the replays, it doesn’t look so good of course. But initially it was a foul.”
Despite being a man down, City were still in the game with around 10 minutes to go after Youri Tielemans scored his first goal of the season, but Michail Antonio’s late double did the damage, leaving Rodgers’ side staring at their heaviest defeat since a 3-0 loss to Liverpool last November. But it was the first two goals, where Jamie Vardy and Caglar Soyuncu gave the ball away, that Rodgers was disappointed by.
Brendan Rodgers said: “I was proud of the spirit and the mentality, they kept going and kept fighting, but we made mistakes and got punished by good players. At 65 minutes, we’re still in the game at 2-1, and then we’re looking to make some changes to keep fighting into the last period of the game. We stayed in the game against a good side, but then we conceded the third goal, which made it very difficult for us. Michail has finished his last two goals really well, and puts a shine on it. The first two goals were avoidable. We started the game and had to be patient, they were defending in a mid-to-deep position, and so you have to work them side to side to find the space. Then when we got through we carried a threat. But the last thing you want to do is present them with goals, and we obviously did that with the first two. If you give the ball away, good teams will punish you. It was a tough night for him (Soyuncu). Michail’s performance was outstanding, he was strong and aggressive, but Cags has had better days. He’ll bounce back.”
