Chipolopolo striker Patson Daka says it has been a long time since he felt happy at Leicester City after scoring his first goal of the season, helping the Foxes secure a 2–1 win over promotion-chasing Stoke City in the English Championship on Saturday.

Daka, whose last goal for Leicester came on December 3, 2024, against West Ham United in the Premier League, ended his drought in emphatic fashion. He latched onto a through-ball from Ghanaian winger Abdul Fatawu Issahaku and expertly lifted his finish over the onrushing goalkeeper—a strike that ultimately proved decisive.

The match had earlier seen Stephy Mavididi, the English forward of Congolese descent, open the scoring.

Daka’s goal takes his tally to one goal and two assists in 16 matches this season.

“Apart from being tired, to be honest, I’m over the moon. I’m really happy for the team. I think we needed this victory because, looking back, I think we have struggled when we come back from the international break. So this was really good for us. We needed to do everything we could to just get the three points,” Daka said after the match.

On the finish itself, Daka explained that it was something he regularly works on in training.

“I think it’s something that I’ve been doing a lot in training. I think I did it with the goalkeepers and they hate it. They always complain about it. But now, after I scored today, they say, okay, you can keep doing it.

“And yeah, I think it was the kind of option that I saw was best for that moment. So I just trusted my instinct and chose a goal.”

Reflecting on his long goal drought, Daka admitted it had been a while since he felt such joy on the pitch.

“It’s been long since I felt like this, to be honest. And yeah, just looking forward to hopefully build on this,” he said.

“It’s been, it’s been long. It’s been long. I think it’s, it’s just nice to see how excited and happy the group is and I think, which is very important for all of us – we are trying by all means to support each other and make sure that we stick together as a team, because we only got each other, so we just have to keep fighting for each other and make sure we make each other’s job easy.”

With Saturday’s victory, Leicester extended their unbeaten run to three matches and climbed to 10th place, moving to 24 points after 16 games.

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