Gary Rowett insists Leicester players desperate to climb table after Stoke draw

Newly appointed Leicester manager Gary Rowett insists his players know their current league position is unacceptable and are desperate to get out of it after his first match in charge ended as a 2-2 draw at Stoke.

The Foxes missed out on taking all three points after Stoke captain Ben Wilmot completed his brace in the 89th minute to secure a share of the points after goals from Divine Mukasa and Harry Winks had cancelled out his early opener.

The result sees Leicester remain in the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone, one point behind West Brom in the relative safety of 21st place.

And Rowett, who was appointed on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before Leicester launched an appeal against a six-point deduction that left them in the bottom three, is confident his squad are fully on board with achieving the aim of beating the drop.

“You saw the players’ reaction at the end – they’re devastated because they just want to win games of football,” he said.

“I think the one thing I’ve found coming into the club is that it’s very easy to judge and label the players, but sometimes you have to just see what they’re about.

“And at the moment, they’ve been really receptive to the ideas. They want to get out of the position they are in. They all recognise that it’s not acceptable to be in a position we’re in with the quality that we’ve got.

“But it’s about doing it on the pitch and it’s about showing it. We can talk about it till we’re blue in the face, but it’s about showing it. And I thought in the second half they did.

“I think we’ve got some really, really good players. I think what we need to do is find a really nice defensive base so that those players in the forward areas haven’t got to score two, three, four goals every game to go and win it.

“We certainly have to be a little bit more solid.”

Stoke have now gone seven games without a win in the Championship, and eight in all competitions.

Boss Mark Robins was left to rue a disappointing second-half display after his side dominated much of the opening 45 minutes.

“It’s just poor decision-making: poor execution and poor decision-making,” he said.

“We can be critical. I’m certainly critical, but then, obviously, on the other hand, we’ve got a group of players that have been put together now waiting for people to come back to give us that extra bit of quality, bit of depth and that ability to go and make changes to improve things.

“Because we’re in a better position than we were, except the lads that are injured. Hopefully we can get them back really quickly because we need them.

“Leicester have got better individuals, there’s no doubt about it. They’ve got better individuals than us, at present, and I thought we’d done brilliantly well to make it as difficult as possible.

“But Gary’s team in the second half played like one of Gary’s teams. They tried to put us on the back foot and we allowed that to happen, and that was the frustration.

“And it is mistakes, it is the lack of energy – there was a lack of energy in the second half. And as I’ve said before – I’ve explained for weeks now – that’s the situation we’re in.”