West Ham 1 Leicester City 2: Claudio Ranieri aims for survival despite his perfect start

West Ham 1 Leicester City 2

(Getty)

Claudio Ranieri says he embraces the “Tinkerman” nickname and enjoys being called it but he has not yet changed Leicester City’s objective for the season and insists they are only targeting survival despite opening with six points from two games.

So called because of the amount of changes he used to make to his team when at Chelsea between 2000 and 2004, the Italian laughed about how he set a trend for managers tinkering with their formations – but they can’t get the label.

“Of course I like this nickname,” Ranieri smiled. “Now a lot of managers change, but the flag is mine.”

Ranieri has not changed Leicester’s form. Their 2-1 win at West Ham on Saturday was their ninth from the past 11 league games, and ensured they have taken 28 points from the past 33 available.

The former Greece and Monaco manager, however, was refusing to get carried away despite the impressive way his team built on the opening-day 4-2 win over Sunderland and last season’s survival surge.

Shinji Okazaki and Riyad Mahrez hit two fine first-half strikes at the Boleyn Ground, rendering Diego Payet’s second-half response no more than a consolation.

“This six points help us to achieve our goal,” Ranieri said. “Our goal is maintain the Premier League [status]. It’s not important to be top of the league now, it’s important to achieve 40, 42 points.”

The result also dampened West Ham’s start to the season, as they were brought back down to earth after the 2-0 win away to Arsenal. It also illustrated their need for more forward players, with manager Slaven Bilic admitting they are looking for a striker and perhaps another signing on top of that.

“We are trying to get maybe two players here to add to our squad,” the Croatian said. “Other quality players, creative players to add to our squad… We are not going to panic.

“Before the game we had a few forward targets and if they become available, then we try to be active. If it happens, then it is going happen, but we aren’t going to just buy.”

Bilic also felt the wildly contrasting experiences of the last week will be beneficial for 16-year-old Reece Oxford’s career in the long-term.

Having starred in last week’s win over Arsenal, the defensive midfielder was this time taken off at half-time after a performance in which he struggled to get into the game. “It’s going to definitely help him in his career to experience both sides of results,” Bilic said.

“As I said, nothing can change, after 2-0 against Arsenal, not for West Ham, not for Reece Oxford, not for any player. Say now, with Oxford, with any other player or with West Ham, we have just to take lessons and to learn lessons from this game, like from every other game.

“If we were gaining confidence and pattern from Arsenal game, we definitely have to take lessons from this. We are team when we are winning, we are team when we are losing.”