Russell Martin ‘really proud’ of Leicester for bouncing back at Stockport

Under pressure Leicester manager Russell Martin said he was “proud” of his players after they held on to claim a precious 4-3 win over Stockport.

Liam Cullen put the Foxes ahead early on and although it was cancelled out by Jack Diamond, two goals for Emil Riis and one for debutant John Lundstram put Martin’s men firmly back in charge.

Ollie Norwood and Kyle Wootton both got their names on the scoresheet to bring County back into the match, but despite their best efforts, they were unable to find the all-important equaliser.

The result sees Leicester pick up just their second win of the Sky Bet League One season and having been thrashed 4-0 at home to Oxford United last weekend, Martin was full of praise for his side’s response.

“I’m really proud of the players,” he said. “Obviously, after last week, so much criticism [was] thrown at everyone, but this week they’ve been amazing.

“They’ve been together, they’ve trained so well, so hard, so I’m really proud of them.

“It’s not easy though, especially here. They’re a good team, a really good team.

“I think we’ve done a good job at just focusing on the work, focusing on the process and we have to do that again because we have to be better than we were today.

“But from what happened last week to this takes a lot of courage, a lot of intensity, a lot of work, so I’m proud of them for that.”

Stockport pushed hard for the leveller, but the offside flag denied both Wootton and Harry Wood.

“The offside goals came because they held a high line and they were brave,” Martin added.

“We made it harder for ourselves than we had to, but my overriding feeling is I’m really, really proud of everyone.”

Stockport have fallen to eighth place on nine points – one more than Leicester – having now won three and lost three of their opening six games.

Boss Jimmy McNulty took his own share of responsibility for the defeat.

“I can’t actually believe that in a game that we conceded four goals that I’m going to express that I actually believe we could have or should have won,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s wild claiming that we potentially could have scored six today, I really don’t.

“The goals that we did concede, of course there’s blame, but I think that’s essentially on me really because I’ve watched Leicester play all season long and I’ve watched all their performances and the strategy that the opposition have chosen against them.

“And to sit in our own half and potentially die a slow death, in the hope that we might steal on the counter, is just not something that I believe I want to convince our team to do or convince our supporters that that’s the best approach.

“I don’t feel that anyone that came to Edgeley today wanted to see us do that either.”