'We know' - Ruud van Nistelrooy makes St James' Park claim Newcastle United supporters will love
Ruud van Nistelrooy admitted his Leicester City players couldn’t live with a dominant Newcastle United.
The former Manchester United striker suffered his first defeat as the Foxes’ manager at a stadium where he enjoyed great success as a player.
Newcastle broke the deadlock in the 30th minute when Jacob Murphy finished off a short corner routine involving Lewis Hall, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon.
The Magpies then put the game out of the visitors’ reach just five minutes into the second-half when Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak scored two quick-fire goals. Murphy’s second goal of the afternoon made it 4-0 on the hour-mark.
Reflecting on his side’s defeat, the Dutchman said: “The domination of Newcastle was clear. The team tried and did the best they could. The game was decided in the detail. The first half was a set-piece and the second one too, straight after half-time. Those are details.
“Then you’re 2-0 down away at Newcastle. If you want to have a chance on the result, you have to take care of these things. If not, it’s going to be a really hard afternoon."
Asked about the atmosphere at St James’ Park, van Nistelrooy added: “We know what St James’ Park is like. It can ignite and then it will be intense. Also the profiles of the players of Newcastle, they have a lot of strong players, high intensity in pressing and in counter-attacks.
“A 4-0 defeat, we defended bad. On the ball was our challenge. We weren’t structured enough to get some good possessions going and we had some ball losses that cost us in the counter-attacks. Set-pieces was a heavy influence today on the result.”