African players abroad Leicester City’s Maddison hails substitutes Daka, Lookman’s impact

Leicester City midfielder James Maddison has said the introduction of Zambian striker Patson Daka and Nigerian Ademola Lookman gave the English side more attacking impetus in the come-from-behind 2-1 win over PSV Eindhoven on Thursday evening.

Maddison said this after Leicester City booted out the Dutch side from Europa League quarterfinal stage via 2-1 on aggregate after the first leg had ended goalless.

But at the end of the day, you’ve got to put the ball in the net and the longer it goes on, you wonder if it is going to be one of those nights. I think I got the goal at a perfect time. It was absolutely brilliant from Ayoze Pérez to chop the guy and lay it on a plate for me,” Maddison told Leicester website.

And then from then, I felt we were going to go on and win the game, wherever it was going to come from. With Ademola [Lookman] and Patson [Daka] coming on, it gave us that freshness in the attack. They linked up for the rebound.

“We were fitter, we were more intense, and we got there in the end with Ricky (Ricardo Pereira) at the back post. It was the best feeling ever, brilliant. I’m so happy for Ricky.”

The Dutch side scored first through Eran Zahavi in the first-half before Maddison and Ricardo Pereira scored in the last 13 minutes of the second leg quarterfinal match to turn around the fortunes.

Leicester will now face AS Roma in the UEFA Europa Conference League semi-final tie.


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