Frustrated Martinez claims Leicester offered ´little threat´

Roberto Martinez was frustrated by Everton’s defensive lapses in a 3-2 Premier League defeat to a Leicester City team he claimed offered “little threat” on Saturday.

Goals from Romelu Lukaku and substitute Kevin Mirallas were not enough for the hosts at Goodison Park, as two Riyad Mahrez penalties and Shinji Okazaki’s strike condemned them to a first defeat in seven league matches. 

Martinez felt Everton were impressive in limiting Leicester’s attacking opportunities and did not think conceding three goals was a fair reflection of the contest.

“Leicester came with a moment of really good form,” he said. “They have got the best goalscoring threat in the league with the amount of goals they have scored.

“They are the best team in counterattacks and I thought we stopped them completely. For us to concede three goals in the manner that we did is very frustrating.

“The whole game went into a difficult way of not being able to get our tempo and not get into our rhythm – Leicester did that really well, they took 30 to 35 seconds to restart every action and you can see us and the crowd getting frustrated.

“The disappointment is to concede soft goals, two of them from throw-ins, one in our favour, one in Leicester’s and that is something we cannot allow – an opposition with so little threat going forward to end up with three goals. 

“That is the difference between being able to win a game or not. I don’t think we were fantastic or at our best but scoring two goals at home against such a well-organised side should have been enough to win the game.

“It is very, very disappointing and very frustrating because it was a game that we were really looking forward to. We wanted to face the league leaders and have a real good test and try to make the three draws that we collected previously become very good draws by getting a good win.”

The result leaves Everton 10th ahead of a trip to Newcastle next Saturday.