Daniel Anartey played in Leicester City 1-2 loss to Watford

Jamie Vardy hasn’t scored for Leicester since the loss to Liverpool on September 10 and despite winning the penalty in City’s tame 2-1 defeat at Watford, he never looked like scoring at the weekend.

They were back in the game inside two minutes when Vardy was bundled over by Miguel Britos after collecting a pass from Shinji Okazaki inside the home penalty area.

The Foxes can clinch a place in the last 16 of the Champions League tonight with two games to spare in stark contrast to the miserable start to their Premier League title defence.

But speaking afterwards, the Italian sought to dismiss the suggestion that cracks are beginning to appear in his Leicester outfit and was instead keen to focus on his side’s positives.

“I don’t think we’re feeling the pressure”, Mahrez told reporters. “We go back in the match, we try to do our best”.

“We had a fantastic reaction”. “I’m happy with the spirit and cohesion of the group but not with the results”.

Asked whether he was concerned by Leicester’s league position, Ranieri said: “Worried? No”.

“We have the opportunity to go to the knockout stages of the Champions League”. If you don’t have confidence you don’t try to react, but we did that well.

‘It is true it is a little bit tough because we know we’re not winning games but on Saturday we played good and we didn’t deserve to lose, at least we deserved a point but we lost and that happens in football, ‘ Mahrez said.

But the close season brought with it a period of soul-searching after Arsenal triggered a release clause in his contract with a £22 million (RM119.9 million) bid.

Watford coach Walter Mazzarri admitted afterwards that his side had meant to hit Leicester hard from the off. Just as he spent most of last season talking down Leicester’s title chances, he played up their performance here. We always want to attack from the start.

Ranieri said: “I don’t understand it”.

One theory is that the big European midweek nights have taken the players’ attention away from what is happening on a weekend, with Leicester collecting only one point from a possible 15 before their five Champions League games so far. We had a lot of time to think about the mistakes. We proved we are a great team.

They have lost 10 of their previous 12 games in England, with their last victory over any English team a 1-0 first-leg success against Chelsea in the 1994/95 Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final.

“When you play against teams like Liverpool, if you don’t have the complete squad it is very hard”.