Ruud van Nistelrooy laid into his players after Leicester were blown away by in-form Wolves on Saturday. Leicester were relegated last weekend and their misery continued at Molineux as Wolves eased to a 3-0 victory and Jamie Vardy saw a penalty saved.
Matheus Cunha turned in Rayan Ait-Nouri’s low cross to put Wolves ahead and then set up goals for Jorgen Strand Larsen and Rodrigo Gomes. Cunha’s 33rd-minute finish meant the Foxes have conceded first in 29 of their 34 Premier League games this season – the most ever by a side in the competition’s history.
It got even worse for Leicester when Vardy, who has announced his exit from the club at the end of the season, could not beat Jose Sa from the penalty spot after winning the spot-kick. Leicester have now lost 24 matches this season and have four games left to salvage some pride from the campaign.
Van Nistelrooy has won just three of his 23 matches since taking charge of the team in late November and admitted this week that he doesn’t know if he will get the chance to lead them in the Championship next season. He made a triple substitution at half-time, but was unable to spark any improvements from his doomed side.
“I look at the performance and that wasn’t good enough,” he told Match of the Day. “I don’t talk football-wise but I talk intensity, duels. We had many easy ball losses in possession, especially in the first half. In the second, yes, we conceded two on the break but we were better in those things. But today wasn’t good enough.”
He added: “At half-time I had to address the things I shared with you. That’s not acceptable. Those things don’t require talent. How intense you press, how intense you make a duel or the easy ball loses that are going to create lots of transitions where you have to recover.
“That is addressed then we went into the second half, we had the penalty with Jamie. That was so unfortunate. I really wanted him to score to get us back in the game but also for himself.
“That summed the game up. Brighton and Liverpool games were positive, today was not. So it’s not consistent enough. Also, it’s a matter of course to keep that motivation and focus going for the team.
“There is a lot to play for, like Jamie’s last games. Supporting our captain should be motivation enough alone to push out everything that’s left. We look at all 17 teams above and acknowledge that we weren’t at that level. That is very clear, we have to accept it and move on.”
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