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Cape Town - Everton boss Roberto Martinez admitted his side lacked the passion to match Premier League champions Leicester in a 3-1 defeat on Saturday night.
The Toffees were trailing as early as the sixth minute when Jamie Vardy broke the deadlock at the King Power Stadium, and they went into the half-time break 2-0 down courtesy of Andy King's goal just after the half-hour mark.
Martinez's players looked second-best throughout, although Kevin Mirallas managed to pull one back at the death with a fine solo goal, after Vardy had put the game to bed with a penalty on 65 minutes.
The Spaniard was seeking for more of the same from the Merseysiders following their 2-1 success over Bournemouth, but was disappointed they weren't up to the task on the day.
"It's very hard to stomach," Martinez told EvertonTV. "We all knew that it was going to be a big footballing celebration and rightly so for Leicester but we came here to win a football game and we never had any intensity.
"I thought our concentration in defence was awful. It's a performance that you don't expect to win a football game. Of course you're playing against the champions, and the reason that they're the champions is because they have got that intensity in their play and their intent in their attacking play.
"To concede the goal that we conceded after five minutes probably that shows that we never, ever replicated what we did last weekend and that's a disappointment.
"If you come to any ground in the Premier League, especially the champions, you have to do the basics rights and you have to start performances with a real concentration, a real focus, a real intensity and a real defensive awareness and clearly, none of those aspects were there in our performance.
"It was really, really hard to take in that respect. It was very much not the level that we expect. Of course, it is a distraction that you have to cope with [the atmosphere] but in the same manner we have our own agenda.
"Our agenda was we won against Bournemouth, we showed a lot of character and a lot of good things and today clearly we didn't replicate that. It's not an excuse; we should have enough experience.
"If anything it would be a young player that couldn't cope with the occasion but I thought the only player that can hold his head high today is Matthew Pennington. He put in a performance full of meaning and of desire."
