Dean Smith insists Leicester City cannot be written off

Dean Smith insists Leicester cannot be written off in their fight for survival.

The Foxes host Liverpool on Monday in danger of the drop after a damaging 5-3 defeat at Fulham.

They are third-from-bottom, two points from Premier League safety, in the middle of a run of four Monday games - leaving them to play after the majority of their relegation rivals.

Smith has already criticised the scheduling but believes the Foxes still have a fighting chance.

The Leicester boss said: "We were written off six games ago and all of a sudden Leeds and Everton were written off and now Everton aren't. The game can change very quickly.

"Monday was our Boomtown Rats (I Don't Like Mondays) day, next time it will be someone else.

"My job is to rationalise what happened. We came in the following day so we could put the game to bed and rationalise it. The players understand what happened and the others coaches' thoughts and we've moved on.

"It was a blow, only after this game on Monday will we know how big a blow it was. You can't change it but what you can do is correct it and move forward."

Smith expects to have the same squad for the visit of Jurgen Klopp's side, meaning Kelechi Iheanacho remains out with a groin problem.

The squad's commitment has been questioned with several, including Youri Tielemans and Caglar Soyuncu, out of contract but Smith expects them to thrown themselves into the survival scrap.

"Not one of the players wants to be in the position we're in. They are searching for answers themselves. All the lads care, they just show it in different ways," he said.

"I'm expecting fight, but I'm expecting better quality than we showed in decision-making opportunities. We need points and it's a home game for us, hopefully Jurgen is not disappointed in the fight he sees.

"They have won six games on the spin, you look at that and it's a real tough time to face them but they haven't won as many games on the road as they normally do."

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