Ruud van Nistelrooy admitted he’d never experienced a feeling like it as Leicester slumped to their seventh successive defeat and fans told the former Manchester United forward “you don’t know what you’re doing”.
The Foxes lost 2-0 to Fulham on Saturday to stay mired in the relegation zone and two points from safety amid their worst run of form in the top-flight for 24 years.
Home fans turned on Van Nistelrooy when he opted to replace Bilal El Khannouss with Kasey McAteer in the 64th minute, and four minutes later Adama Traore struck Fulham’s second goal to effectively win the game.
Van Nistelrooy refused to explain why he made the change, and admitted he was feeling as low as he ever has since being appointed boss on November 29.
“We deserved to be beat, Fulham were the better team.,” he told Sky Sports. “It was disappointing in all aspects of the game. We weren’t good enough in all aspects. This is the first game I’ve felt like this. In the other games I felt there was enough aspects to get a result and today there wasn’t.
“We have time to reflect. There is no need to be positive today. We need to think about the performance and the behaviours and how to bring this forward. These are the biggest questions we need to ask as a group of coaches, me as the manager and as a group of players. We have time to move forward after those reflections.
“It is up to us as players and me as a manager to bring this forward. It is clear we need to bring hope back for the fans and that starts with us. It is our responsibility to work on and do better and move on from there.”
Leicester full-back James Justin admitted fans had every right to jeer the team, and said the mood in the camp is one of deflation.
“They pay their money to watch their club and we’re not doing the club any good at the moment,” Justin told Premier League Productions. “They can boo if they want to be honest. They are entitled to do that. It doesn’t help anything I don’t think, but we’re the ones getting them there at the minute so we need to do something to change that.
“(The form) is frustrating. It has been a shocking run from us. We’re trying to do everything to change it but nothing seems to be working. We are deflated. We’ll have a couple of days off and then regroup and see where we can improve.”
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