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Leicester manager Enzo Maresca praised the contribution of veteran striker Jamie Vardy as the Foxes continued their superb start to the season with a 2-0 Carabao Cup win at Tranmere.
Second-half goals from Wilfred Ndidi and former England international Vardy proved the difference as the league side beat their second division opponents 2-0.
It was Leicester’s sixth win in six in all competitions this season and 36-year-old Vardy opened his account for the season after returning to the starting line-up.
Maresca said: “I’m happy to continue in this competition and I’m happy for the players, especially the young players who don’t play every week.
“I was really happy with Jamie Vardy because when a striker scores they are always happy for him and the team.
“He performed well when he started and also when he was on the bench and his contribution was great.”
The Foxes enjoyed plenty of possession in the early stages of the second round match at Prenton Park and had several chances to get the opener, with Harry Winks being the closest after seven minutes.
But the 2016 Premier League champions didn’t have everything they wanted as Rovers gained confidence and managed some good opens from Dan Pike and Josh Hawkes after half an hour of determined defence.
Nine minutes after the break, the stalemate was finally broken when Ndidi’s shot from the right side of the area found the net over both posts and just four minutes later Vardy leveled the scores with Ndidi’s close-range header.
The visitors had further chances as the Rovers pushed forward with Vardy and Ndidi, both of whom were thwarted by Joe Murphy, a veteran of those two’s clash in the final of this competition at Wembley 23 years ago.
Maresca added: “I wasn’t happy at half-time so I made some changes and we’ve played six games in about 20 days and we have one more to go before the international break.”
“We have now won six games out of six and all attention is now focused on the game on Saturday before the international break when some players can conserve their energy.”
Despite the defeat, Tranmere manager Ian Dawes was keen to focus on the positive aspects of the game.
He said: “We knew before the game today that they don’t make many changes, that they are really strong and that the manager takes the competition seriously.”
“We knew we had to get our defensive organization right and we knew we had to limit their scoring chances and push forward as the game progressed.
“We had to hold the game down a bit, keep the ball and then create chances for ourselves and I felt we did that really well and everything went according to plan and they probably scored the first goal when we were up.”
“In the end we have to have a positive attitude, it still hurts to be beaten and obviously we wanted to go through but you have to look at what they have on the pitch.
“If you look at their side they still have Premier League players in their team and if you put things in context we can only be positive and we have to take that into account against Wrexham on Saturday.”
Source : www.independent.co.uk