Eddie Howe credited Leicester City for springing a surprise on his Newcastle side with their well-worked corner routine.
The Newcastle manager’s pre-match analysis could not prepare him for the corner from which City scored because it was not something he had ever seen Brendan Rodgers’ side try before. That meant when Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall crossed, his team were not in a position to deal with it.
The corner was played low to the front post where Ayoze Perez delicately flicked it to the middle of the goal, with Ademola Lookman rushing in unmarked to finish. It had put City 1-0 up, but it ended up being the highlight of a poor game in which they fell to defeat following Bruno Guimaraes’ double, including a last-minute winner.
Howe said: “They were creative and credit to them, it’s a corner we haven’t seen them do before. You need your structures to be right around that, so we’re disappointed to concede. We’ll have a look at how and why. We’ll try to find a solution to it. Credit to them for their delivery.
“It was a tough game today. I thought Leicester played very well. We found ourselves in a situation where we weren’t having a lot of the ball. We had to be very good defensively and stop them penetrating. It was a game of transitions for us, and thankfully one of those has paid off.”
City assistant manager Chris Davies was behind the routine, with Rodgers explaining that he analyses the opposition for areas to be exploited at set-pieces. This particular play was practised in training on Saturday, goalscorer Lookman revealed.
Rodgers said: “Chris Davies, he works ever so hard on the set-pieces in terms of the offensive set-pieces. He has a look at the opponent and sees where we can take advantage of them.
“It worked
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