Blues boss Roy Keane felt his team settled into the snowy conditions better than Leicester after Town’s 3-0 victory over Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Foxes. Eriksson was less than impressed that the match went ahead in conditions he believed were more suited to skiing.
Keane said: "We looked at the conditions and I don’t think it was going to be a night for too many touches on the ball.
"Rory was a good asset to us, obviously you can understand why Leicester brought Howard on after 20 minutes.
"We played to our strengths and adapted to the conditions and scored three good goals. There was good honesty amongst the players, which was particularly reflected in the third goal with Shane not giving up and chasing a lost cause and we got the reward.”
The Town manager says that although the conditions will be what’s most discussed, his team went out there and did the business: "Everyone’s going to be talking about the conditions, when we were taken off and whether it should have been played. The game was played, we adapted better, we scored three goals and we move on.
"The referee was under lots of pressure, as you’d expect, particularly from Leicester. Once the game started, I don’t think there was an issue with the safety of the players, and we were passing it OK.
"But when you’re taken off after about 58 minutes you’re always concerned and it would have been typical if it was called off. It wouldn’t have surprised me, the way things are going.”
Keane had praise for groundsman Alan Ferguson: "The groundstaff did very well, Fergie and all the lads.”
As for his own position, the 39-year-old Irishman says he isn’t getting carried away after just one victory: "I’m glad we won the game but the pressure’s still on. It’s one result.”
Sven-Goran Eriksson felt the conditions didn’t suit his Leicester team’s approach: "We were not good on the snow, that’s for sure. It’s difficult for the referee when he starts a game and after 30 minutes we are 3-0 down.
"If the result was 0-0 when he took the 10-minute break, he would have said ‘no more game’, but at 3-0 for them, it’s very difficult for him. There was a lot of pressure on him.
"I can’t really say [I’m disappointed with my players], we conceded some goals easily. But in the second half, what shall I do? It’s not our way to play football to nick it long to Stevie Howard and try to win second balls. We’re not that good at that. We want to play football. We are not good on snow.”
The Swede says the match, which was shown on TV throughout the world, was a poor advert for football: "If you look wider on it, who wants to see a football game like that? If I'm sitting in Australia in a bar, I switch off for sure.
"If I'm sitting in Sweden, I've never seen football in snow because I go skiing in snow, not playing football.”