Craig Shakespeare has joked that the early stages of Leicester City's league meeting with Everton 'resembled a basketball match', but was ultimately upset not to come away with at least a point.
The two sides traded blows in a frenetic opening to the match, scoring five goals between them in the first half as the Toffees eventually prevailed 4-2 on home soil.
Three of those goals came inside the first 10 minutes, with Islam Slimani and Marc Albrighton registering for City to cancel out Tom Davies's 30-second opener, but the Foxes struggled to hold off their opponents in the remainder of the thrilling contest.
Shakespeare, who takes his team to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League next, is now looking to put the result to one side and insists that the five changes made to his starting lineup should not have made a telling difference.
"I'm disappointed not to win the game," he told BBC Sport. "I don't think we deserved the win, I'm not saying that, but going behind so early on and then going 2-1 up, it was like a basketball game early on and a bit too open for me. Ultimately it was the two set plays that cost us the game in the end.
"We've got a big run of games coming up. I need to use the squad, the squad are good enough but they weren't at it today. The team that was picked was good enough to come here and get the result."
"We've said before we don't dwell on results. We can't do because we're training tomorrow for a big game on Wednesday. We have to move on quickly and we will learn from it. You're always a bit disappointed but we will brush ourselves down and we will be ready for Wednesday."
A first league defeat in six for champions Leicester leaves them 11th in the Premier League table.
Daniel Lewis
