Ruud van Nistelrooy addresses Leicester City boos for Danny Ward and explains substitution call

The Leicester City manager gives his thoughts on the home crowd boos and jeers for their own goalkeeper, who made errors in the first half in a costly defeat to fellow strugglers Wolves

Ruud van Nistelrooy praised Danny Ward for his handling of targeted boos from the Leicester City crowd and said he did not consider substituting the Welshman.

Ward, in the team with Mads Hermansen injured, was jeered by City fans after each of Wolves’ three first-half goals and then ironically cheered when he completed passes or collected loose balls in the second period. For van Nistelrooy it was “hard to see”.

Despite Ward’s difficult first half, in which he made poor attempts at saves for the first and third goals, and contributed to a moment of miscommunication for the second, van Nistelrooy did not consider making a change. He wanted to stand by the Welshman.

“Booing and being disappointed with a result, I think it’s the right of a supporter to show your emotions. We all do that. But when it goes to one person, that is hard to see for me personally.

“I think he kept his composure very well over the course of the game. It’s not easy when something happens like that, when you catch a ball and people start cheering, and boo you when it gets personal like that. I think he handled it very well.

“If you look only at the result, then it was a very bad performance,” he said. “If you look at the goals and how we conceded them as individual incidents and look at the rest of the game, it was not as bad as the result said.

“It’s clear if you look at that fact (seven goals conceded in two games); it’s way too much. Today, three goals conceded, but it’s only one goal for expected goals.

“Against WestHam, we won, and we had three expected goals. You take the points, and everybody is happy, but we addressed that it was too much. Overall, today we defended better, no matter how weird it sounds. But individual mistakes let in the three goals. Over 90 minutes, those incidents we couldn’t overcome.”