Leicestershire

Leicester City's interim boss Andy King told branded the Foxes capitulation against Southampton as "completely unacceptable" in his post-match interview with BBC Radio Leicester.

The East Midlands club were three goals up at half-time and leading 3-1 until the 81st minute, only to lose 4-3 in a sensational late collapse at the King Power Stadium.

"I want to start by apologising for that last half an hour. It was completely unacceptable," King said.

"Obviously, the feeling I have at the moment is sheer anger towards the performance. It will take a bit of time to process, I have to watch it back, see what happened but, yeah, passive and not good enough.

"Probably a lack of character, a lack of leadership, stuff we have said about before and it has been almost a pattern throughout the season where you do some good bits in good spells and then we almost have a spell of the game where we just go under.

"Like I say, I'm angry at the moment so I don't want to speak out of turn. I need to watch it back, I need to properly analyse it, I need a bit of time to reflect on it. Like I said, I fully apologise for it but that's all I'm sat with at the moment.

"You've seen today, probably, our season in a nutshell. You've seen some brilliant football, some goals, some really good stuff and then some stuff which is unacceptable and we have seen both sides of that today.

"Come out of another loss, some good stuff, but second half, last half an hour, from my point of view, like I keep saying, apologies. Completely unacceptable."

Leicester City and Southampton will put their opposing veins of form to the test when they meet at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday (19:45 GMT).

The Foxes have lost four of their past five Championship matches (D1) and a six point deduction means they only steer clear of the relegation zone on goal difference.

While Saints have won three of their past four (D1) and are now just four points shy of the play-off places.

• Leicester City have won four of their last five home league games against Southampton (L1), winning 5-0 in April 2024 when the sides last met at the King Power Stadium in the Championship.

• Southampton won 3-0 in the reverse fixture with Leicester City in November this season and could now complete a league double over the Foxes for the first time since the 2022-23 Premier League campaign – they last did so outside of the top-flight in 2007-08 in the Championship.

• Leicester City have lost their last two home league games, last losing three in a row in the same Championship campaign in their final three home matches of the 2006-07 campaign under Nigel Worthington.

• Southampton's 2-0 win at Stoke last month ended a run of six Championship away games without victory (D2 L4), and the Saints could win back-to-back league matches of the road for only the second time since the start of last season, previously doing so in November this season.

• Leicester City are winless in each of their last 11 midweek league matches (Tue/Wed/Thu – D4 L7), since a 3-1 home win over West Ham in December 2024. Their last such win in the Championship was at home to Southampton in April 2024 (5-0).

Owain Gwynedd
BBC Final Score reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Leicester are in real trouble and in a relegation battle.

What do they need to do to survive? Stop the self-inflicted errors and control the controllables.

Bobby De Cordova-Reid's red card, a second in as many games for a Leicester player, was totally unnecessary.

There was no danger in midfield, the challenge was unnecessary and if he'd stayed on his feet, the Foxes would have had 11 men for 90 minutes.

Birmingham's first goal came from Ricardo Pereira dawdling in possession.

Cut out those two errors and Leicester could easily have been leaving with something from the match, especially when they have players of the quality of Abdul Fatawu in the side, a match-winner with the ability to score screamers - he bagged a stunner at St Andrew's.