Steve Cooper “can’t think of anything worse” than describing Leicester City’s clash with Arsenal as a free hit.
City head to the Emirates Stadium this Saturday (3pm kick-off) for their toughest test of the Premier League season so far. Against the Gunners, unbeaten and expected to challenge for the title, the chances of City claiming their first victory of the season seem slim.
It could be said that City’s Premier League survival bid will not rest on matches against clubs like Arsenal, but taking such an attitude is not in Cooper’s thinking. He says the City squad could never believe in him if he treated this weekend’s encounter as a “bonus”.
“We’re not going to go into any game seeing it as a free hit or a bonus game,” he said at his press conference on Thursday afternoon. “I can’t think of anything worse than having a mentality like that.
“If I as a leader gave that off to the players, how could they ever believe anything I say? That needs clarifying, that we’re absolutely going to commit to this game at the weekend.
“The odds will be against us and the expectations, but internally we have to back ourselves to get the right result in the game. You can win these games.
“I don’t think you can go into a game thinking: ‘They’re right at the top of the league so let’s just get through it.’ You’ve got to go in there with the intention you can really achieve in the game.
“We’re coming up against an incredible team who have been in great form for a number of years. They’ve been challenging in the Premier League and cup competitions and in other seasons, certainly in the Premier League with the points they got, they’d have won the league. We’re coming up against a really tough opponent.
“It’s these games that you have to embrace and not go in there fearing failure. That’s what we want to do, to back ourselves. It couldn’t be a better time to get the result we’re all craving. We want to go for it.”
City are one of six clubs who go into the weekend still chasing their first victory of the season. Included among the ranks are fellow newly-promoted sides Ipswich and Southampton.
Cooper added: “Very rarely is it plain sailing for a newly-promoted team to be very comfortable. I know Leicester should never have been in the Championship, and everything about the club is Premier League, but we are still coming off the back of a Championship season. We’re still transitioning to being a Premier League team. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But we back ourselves to achieve this year.”
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