Leicester City manager Enzo Maresca says that his side had to work hard for the three points after defeating Stoke City 2-0 on Saturday afternoon.
The Foxes retained their position at the top of the Championship through goals from strikers Kelechi Iheanacho and Jamie Vardy.
Stoke are having a tough time themselves, now sitting in 21st place, having one one of their last six in the league before Saturday, but it was still never going to be easy.
Enzo Maresca on the ‘complicated game’ against Stoke
The Potters made sure of that, which Maresca recognised.
“A complicated game, a complicated win,” the 43-year-old told the club website. “As we always say, when the opponent sits back, it’s complicated to find a solution, because they have 11 players and there’s no space.
“But the important thing is that we continue to try and we found the goal. It was a fantastic [first] goal. But as you can see, there wasn’t much space, so it was difficult, it was not easy. First of all, be patient. Let them run, because the game for them is very long.
“After 70 minutes, we can find more space and more solutions. But even [in the] first half, we were trying to find some solutions inside, some switches with Abdul [Fatawu] and Yunus [Akgün] in this side. You can always do better for sure, 100 per cent. But it is not easy.
“At the end, we finished with four or five chances – the Kiernan [Dewsbury-Hall] chance, the Wilfred [Ndidi] chance, but also in this kind of game, the players from the bench are very important as already happened many times. They are the main players and it worked today.”