Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy spurned a number of gilt-edged chances

Leicester City boss Enzo Maresca lamented Jamie Vardy’s missed chances as his side fell to a 1-0 defeat to Bristol City as their fight to stay in the Championship’s automatic places continued.

Hero of their Premier League title-winning side Vardy spurned three big chances and had two further attempts at Ashton Gate, with man-of-the-match Max O’Leary standing firm to deny him, as the Foxes fell to a fourth defeat in their last six games.

Anis Mehmeti stole all the points away for the Robins with an emphatic strike from the edge of the box after Mark Sykes picked up a loose ball from opposing keeper Mads Hermansen and played it to the Albanian international.

“It was a tough afternoon in terms of in this moment, [and] always, when you lose a game it’s tough,” the Leicester manager said. “We created, once again, many chances, [but] we missed. We’ve said many times that football, in the end, is a matter of taking chances.

“This showed that, in the end, this is football. It can happen to Jamie, it can happen to (Patson) Daka, Kelechi (Iheanacho), (Tom) Cannon, it can happen. It’s football. Jamie has scored so many goals with this club in his life and today he probably could score some goals, but it can happen.

“Unfortunately, it happened today but as we said, we are now in the last eight, nine games, every game is important. But we created four or five clear, clear chances.

“I think first half, Jamie was one-on-one with the keeper twice and tried to score. Second half, two or three more chances, but this showed that it can happen.”

Former England international Vardy was constantly jeered throughout the game as he missed chance after chance and was subsequently replaced by Iheanacho shortly after the Reds opened the scoring in Maresca insisted was a pre-planned change to freshen personnel.

The Robins side that Maresca found himself up against on Good Friday differed to the one that he faced in the reverse fixture at the King Power, in which the East Midlands side ran away 1-0 winners, ironically from a Vardy penalty.

That Reds side was steered by Nigel Pearson and there were five different faces in the starting XI back in September to the one that beat the Foxes on Good Friday.

“We knew that they are a good team,” added Maresca, who worked with Liam Manning at West Ham. “They started quick from, I don’t remember, I think it was a throw-in or a free-kick they started with.

“They beat West Ham, they beat Southampton, Hull City, Middlesbrough, we knew that. For sure, in the last nine or 10 games, they play always with a line of four. Today they were a line of five. But they have good players. We knew that they were very dangerous in behind. We suffered that kind of ball behind in some moments but, yes, they are a good team.”

Leicester now sit in second in the Championship after leading the league for the majority of the season and are only one points ahead of Ipswich who are third, just outside the automatic promotion places.

For the Robins, the win against the Foxes means they pick up back-to-back home wins after beating Swansea City before their away defeat to West Bromwich Albion and the subsequent international break