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Leicester strikers just need a goal for things to turn around, says Kevin Phillips

Goals are key for Leicester

Leicester coach Kevin Phillips says the players and staff are remaining positive, despite a bad run of results, and insists they are just a win away from turning their season around. And their Sunday clash with Aston Villa gives them an opportunity to do just that…

It’s been a frustrating time for us at Leicester.

The stats show we’re nine without a win but we’ve produced some positive performances, especially in our last two games, against Liverpool and QPR.

We’ve created more chances, scored a few goals – and yet still wait for that win.

We’ve got to remain positive, though. Of course there’s room for improvement but we’re coming into a really critical part of the season, where the games will come thick and fast.

However, we know that one or two wins would shoot us up the table – and hopefully we can get the first of those against Aston Villa on Super Sunday.

One of the big problems we’ve had is scoring goals – and as the forwards’ coach at Leicester I’ve been working hard to try to address that.

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As a striker, I had dry spells during my career. It happens. The test of character is, can you respond, bounce back and keep getting into the same positions, making the same runs and giving yourself opportunities to score goals?

Leonardo Ulloa  is congratulated by Jamie Vardy
Image: Leonardo Ulloa and Jamie Vardy are working hard to turn things around for Leicester

Watching our forwards at Leicester, they’ve certainly done that in the past two games, which is pleasing. Unfortunately it just hasn’t happened for them in front of goal and instead we’ve had to rely on people chipping in from other areas.

I’m a great believer, though, in that all it takes is for one goal to go in off a striker’s backside and then suddenly the goals will start flowing again.

I’ve seen many times over the years that one goal can take the pressure off your shoulders and then you’re relaxed and feel like you’re going to score whenever you step out on to the pitch. Our strikers just need to keep on doing the right things.

And that’s our focus in training, too. Of course, we don’t do exactly the same drills every day but just because we haven’t scored doesn’t mean we stop doing what we’re doing.

Ultimately it’s about hitting the back of the net. If we’re doing attacking play in training, it’s about the end product. Can we finish with a goal? When I played there was no better feeling or sound than the ball hitting the net, so that’s what we work on doing. It will come.

Method

Similarly, our manager, Nigel Pearson, isn’t about to change his methods because of a few bad results. There’s been a lot of talk this week about him sitting up in the stands rather than down in the dugout during games, but it’s something that works for him.

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We won the Championship last season with him using that method and we had a good start to this campaign, too. There are going to be people out there who will criticise that but you can’t change just because a few results haven’t gone your way.

His position was highlighted this week after a mix-up with a substitution against Liverpool. Our captain Wes Morgan had just been sent off and the immediate reaction was to get another centre-half on. However, Nigel changed his mind and, as we were trailing, opted to wait and then get an attacker on.

It wasn’t great for Liam Moore, who had got ready to come on, but the manager got it spot on because we looked a more dangerous team after that and finished strongly.

Nigel has been in the game a long time, he’s an experienced manager and we believe and trust in him. There will always be a minority who won’t be happy if things aren’t going well but we need everyone pulling in the right direction.

Christian Benteke of Aston Villa celebrates after scoring against Crystal Palace
Image: Christian Benteke: Danger man

That’s especially true on Sunday, when we come up against an Aston Villa side including Christian Benteke.

On his day he’s a great player and a real handful for any defence in the Premier League. He’s also had a huge confidence boost by grabbing the winner at Crystal Palace after being out with an injury for a while. He’ll be really excited about Sunday and believe he can score again.

Benteke is going to be a big player for them this season and we’re going to have to try to keep him quiet.

If we can do that, though, we stand a good chance. It’s a tough game – it always is at Villa Park – but we’re creating chances at the moment. We just need to take them – and then we can start moving up the league. 

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