Van Nistelrooy hoping to turn performances into points at Leicester

Ruud van Nistelrooy insisted only points can guarantee Leicester City's Premier League survival after a string of good performances have come away with nothing.

Leicester were beaten 2-0 by Crystal Palace on Wednesday, leaving them two points adrift of safety after 21 games of their season so far.

The Foxes have lost each of their last six Premier League games in succession, their longest run in the competition since September 2022.

They last endured a longer top-flight losing streak between March and April 2001, when they lost eight in a row under Peter Taylor.

After taking over from Steve Cooper, Van Nistelrooy has lost six of his eight Premier League games in charge of the Foxes, with the Dutchman already losing more league games with Leicester than he did during his time at PSV in the Eredivisie in 2022-23 (won 23, drawn six, lost five).

"We’ve talked about it for a while now. It's a matter of getting those good performances into points and that's the target because we know where we are in the league," he said.

"We know only points can get us out of the situation. We desperately want to be out of that situation by the end of May.

We know that every game that we don’t collect, that’s one game gone, and it makes it more difficult.

"We also know we are in a position with three or four teams very close together, they are also dropping points and that makes the situation still possible.

"But it's up to us to start collecting, we are fed up with that [performance and no result]."

But in an attempt to improve their chances of beating the drop, Leicester made their first signing of the January window, welcoming defender Woyo Coulibaly from Parma.

Van Nistelrooy revealed that Coulibaly could feature in their Premier League clash against Fulham this weekend, while also outlining the clubs' transfer plans this month.

"Today he wasn’t able to train yet with the team because we are finalising the paperwork. So we are waiting for today if he can train with the team," Van Nistelrooy added.

"We have to assess him, and it's one training session before the game. We’ll see if we can get him involved in the game on Saturday. I think that will be the maximum possible.

"We’re working on it, on every possibility that we can add. Permanent and loan as well, within the possibility of the club.

"We needed an extra right-back because of the injury to Ricardo. Hopefully, we can add some more."