Marti Cifuentes enjoys important Leicester victory over Ipswich

Marti Cifuentes believes Leicester’s 3-1 win against in-form Ipswich is an important step forward for his side after the Foxes tasted victory at the King Power Stadium for just the fourth time in the league this season.

Abdul Fatawu sent a stunning lob from just under 70-yards out over a backpedalling Christian Walton on 43 minutes to double Leicester’s lead, after Bobby De Cordova-Reid lashed a shot into the bottom right corner from 30 yards out on eight minutes.

Leicester stretched their lead on 52 minutes when Jordan Ayew turned home Ricardo Pereira’s cutback before substitute Jens Cajuste reduced the deficit for Ipswich on 71 minutes as he pounced on an error from Foxes goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk.

The Foxes sit just three points outside of the play-off places and Cifuentes admits his side need to produce more consistent performances if they want to climb into the top-six.

Cifuentes said: “It’s a huge win. It’s an important step forward after a challenging week. It was a very good performance against a very good team.

“The second goal is a brilliant moment from Abdul. He tries it a lot in training. He likes to look for those situations. It’s a brilliant goal, he pushes himself to be better and it was a very nice moment.

“He likes to try it in all situations, in-game or by himself, that’s the key that is inside of him and I love it. I don’t want to take that away from him.

“There is still a lot of things we need to improve. The consistency from game-to-game and the consistency during games. We want control but it’s very difficult in any league to be dominant for 90 minutes.

“The identity we want to build is about commitment, team-work, playing for the badge and playing for each other. I know it’s not easy but if we do it together it’s much easier.”

Ipswich lost for just the second time in 11 matches but remain in the play-off places.

Boss Kieran McKenna admits the goals his side conceded came at the worst possible times for the visitors.

McKenna said: “It wasn’t a great performance. There was nothing really in the game and they score an incredible goal right on half-time. You have to give credit to an incredible bit of individual brilliance.

“It was a game of moments and not many moments went our way. We’ve got to work on our response to going behind a little bit more. The goals came at the worst possible times.

“We’re disappointed with the third goal, definitely more than the other two, we switch off and from there it’s really tough. We got a goal back and had chances but we weren’t quite able to get the second goal which would have made it really interesting.

“It’s hard to think too much about putting a run together. You can’t get too ahead of yourself about a run. To go and win all your games in a run at this stage of the season is really difficult.

“It’s just about doing what you can to win the next game and that’s where our focus needs to be.”