Leicester City (A) | Schumacher's Reaction

Fine margins at certain times in football matches can sometimes lead to wider margins elsewhere.

At 1-0 down to a Stephy Mavididi penalty after 15 minutes, Argyle were on the back foot in the early parts of the first half away to Leicester City, but as the opening 45 minutes wore on, Steven Schumacher’s team visibly grew into the game.

The Pilgrims consistently won the ball back from the Foxes high up the field and had several chances to draw level before the interval.

Unfortunately, those chances were not taken, and in the first ten minutes of the second half Leicester powered away, with Mavididi adding his second goal between strikes from Patson Daka and Wilfred Ndidi.

“I’m disappointed to lose the game, but I feel the scoreline might be a little bit harsh,” said Schumacher. “We knew we were coming to a top team and with the quality that they've got, we knew our performance had to be perfect.

“It's a disappointing defeat, but I'm not too disappointed in how it happened. I know it's another 4-0 away from home, but it's completely different to the last time that happened to us. We take it and we move on.

“I think a lot of the first half was really good. They started the game well, which we expected, and then we grew into the game. We grew in belief, played with a load of confidence, and got into some brilliant areas.

“Let's have it right; we should have scored in the first half. We didn't, and in the half-time, we said: ‘come on, stick to the plan, keep being aggressive with our press’ because we highlighted that was going to be our best way to score.

“We grew into the game and started passing the ball in the areas that we wanted to try and nick the ball off Leicester, we managed to do that. We got the crowd uneasy and we created some brilliant chances. I also said to the players, ‘come on, you need to take one of those chances. You're not going to get too many more of them. Someone's got to show that one bit of quality.’

“Unfortunately, from a good bit of quality from them [they score]. Sometimes you've got to hold your hand up. It's a great pass from the goalie, their striker's in on goal and they've punished us.

“That's the difference between the two teams; they have more quality than what we do.  We knew that before we started, so I'm not too surprised.

“We didn't make more of a game of it, so within ten minutes of the second half, the game's gone. It's out of our hands and it's damage limitation to a certain extent, but even then I felt that the lads kept going and kept playing the way we wanted to play. We nicked the ball off them again three or four times right outside their box and just didn't have that moment where someone could score.”

Around 3,000 Argyle fans headed to King Power Stadium and despite the scoreline, made their voices heard throughout the game, especially in the second half, with a lengthy rendition of ‘Green and White Barmy Army’.

The backing of the fans was not lost on Schumacher, who says the team will do everything in their power to get a win on the road at Queens Park Rangers on Wednesday night.

“I felt our fans deserved a goal today because they were absolutely outstanding,” said Schumacher. “The way they sang throughout the whole game, the way they clapped us all off the pitch there at the end, was different class.

“My last point on my team talk before the game was that we had to believe that we can come here and get a result, and put in maximum effort. I said: ‘if we do that, I know our fans will accept whatever outcome’ - and they did that.

“The lads did give up maximum effort; today we were just beaten by a better team.

“We have to take it, move on, try to put in a performance as good as that on Wednesday night and get a win that the fans deserve.

“They're travelling in their numbers and I know they back us. We want to reward that with a win and we're all working extremely hard for that.”