Dean Smith dismayed by Leicester’s heavy loss at Fulham

Dean Smith admitted he did not see Leicester’s poor first-half performance coming as they were beaten 5-3 by Fulham at Craven Cottage to plunge them deeper into relegation trouble.

The visitors were overrun before the break by Marco Silva’s side, with Leicester – porous and disorganised in defence – allowing Fulham to rip into them and build a three-goal lead by half-time.

Willian and Tom Cairney both hit braces either side of the interval whilst Carlos Vinicius also netted to affirm the home side’s dominance, with two second-half goals from Harvey Barnes and a James Maddison penalty lending a respectability to the score that did not reflect Leicester’s frailties.

It leaves Smith’s side in serious danger of being relegated from the Premier League with three games remaining, and he said: “The game was lost in the first half.

Defeat at Craven Cottage.#FULLEI pic.twitter.com/R232tJwIrz

— Leicester City (@LCFC) May 8, 2023

“The performance in the first half was nowhere near what it has been and what the players can produce.

“I’m disappointed because I didn’t see that coming. We’d had a good week in training, good attitude, good application, good quality.

“I expected a far better performance and a better start to the game than we got. At this level, if you give the kind of goals away that we gave away it’s going to be an uphill battle.

“I don’t like basketball games, I don’t think it suits us given the fact we haven’t kept a clean sheet for so long.

“The first goal was really disappointing, a soft free-kick and it goes straight in. From there you could see the buoyancy in their players.

“It was far too easy to get into our penalty box and create chances. We were quite happy to get in at half time to try and stem the flow.

“I wasn’t happy (at half-time), the players weren’t happy with their performance as well. We started the second half better, had a chance early on then got done on the counter-attack ourselves.”

It ended a three-game unbeaten run for Leicester which had seen them rise to 16th, but with only a point separating four threatened sides at the start of play the Foxes could ill afford to make the kind of start the travelling fans witnessed.

Another proud day in an incredible season.