Leicester City are back on home turf on Boxing Day and they need a response following their loss to QPR, in which they trailed by four goals at the break for the first time in four years.
Leicester City’s Boxing Day performance must be an “apology” on the back of their debacle at QPR, according to manager Marti Cifuentes.
City face Watford at home in the festive fixture, but the atmosphere at the King Power Stadium is unlikely to be particularly merry after the drubbing at Loftus Road at the weekend.
Conceding in just the second minute, City were then second best to QPR throughout the first half – going on to concede three more times before the interval.
A 4-0 half-time deficit was City’s worst for four years, while they never looked like mounting a serious fight-back after the break.
They need a response, then, when the Hornets come to town, with the two clubs separated by just one point in the Championship table.
“We want to have a good performance in front of our fans,” Cifuentes said during a pre-match press conference. “We are all disappointed. I’ve always said that good teams react strongly after a bad game and after a defeat.
“That’s where our focus is. We have done it before. That’s where the target is, to make sure that we have a good game in front of our fans to apologise as well for the result in the last game, which was very disappointing.
“I can tell you, probably nobody was more disappointed than me. It was a tough day. We have to move on now, and prepare this game the best way we can.”
City had arrived at Loftus Road on the back of one of their best showings of the campaign against Ipswich and working out how their levels could drop so drastically has been the talking point at Seagrave this week.
“The first half was far from what we expected, especially coming from a good week,” Cifuentes added.
“We spoke with the players about the reasons why we had this kind of performance, and what are the things we shouldn’t repeat, what are the things that give us the competitive level that we need, as we showed the previous week.
“There’s no hiding. We can’t forget what happened. But we have to try to improve and move on quickly, because we have a quick turnaround and it’s an opportunity to show it was an accident and not what we want to be.”