Tuesday 28 February 2017 07:52, UK
Jamie Vardy has labelled the recent criticism directed towards Leicester City as "unfair" after their morale-boosting victory over Liverpool, on Monday.
The reigning champions claimed their first Premier League win of 2017, hammering Liverpool 3-1 just four days after Claudio Ranieri was relieved of his duties.
Vardy produced a man-of-the-match display, scoring either side of Danny Drinkwater's thunderbolt, as the champions responded to their detractors.
"There was a bit of apprehension going into the game," Vardy told Sky Sports. "We've come under a lot of unfair stick with the stuff that's been in the press.
"What you've seen out there is a reaction from the lads, the performance showed exactly that.
"Now it's down to us to do that consistently moving forward and pick up as many points as possible."
Asked what had changed for Leicester to produce a performance so dissimilar to the form which cost Ranieri his job, the England striker added: "I can't put my finger on why we haven't seen a performance like that.
"We've been working hard with everything we've been asked to do but it has not been happening. Luckily everything clicked tonight."
Vardy ended a frustrating goal-drought to score his first Premier League goals since December's 4-2 victory over Manchester City, as Leicester moved up to 15th in the table, two points clear of the bottom three.
And, after revealing the influence of a pre-match pep talk with interim boss Craig Shakespeare, Vardy hoped his goals would lead to more as the season wears on.
"Shakespeare told me to play a lot higher and exploit weaknesses where we thought we would hurt Liverpool," Vardy added. "I've done that tonight and managed to get in behind quite a lot.
"I've been very frustrated with the amount of goals I've got this season but hopefully those two can push me on and hopefully there will be a lot to follow.
"We were damned if we did and damned if we didn't tonight. We just needed to show that we've got that fight until the end.
"Win or lose, as long as we got the performance right we could have held our heads high, but on that performance we deserved the three points."
