Leicester 2 - 0 Liverpool
Premier League
The King Power Stadium
Jamie Vardy 60 Jamie Vardy 71
Leicester’s Jamie Vardy opens the scoring with a stunning strike against Liverpool, in their Premier League game at the King Power Stadium.
It is the story that keeps on giving and to think the Hollywood screenwriter who plans to make a film about Jamie Vardy was in the stands to watch the latest chapter in this remarkable tale unfold. Roy Hodgson was also among the crowd and unable to suppress a smile as Vardy scored twice – the first a contender for goal of the season – on a night when Leicester looked like authentic title contenders in every sense.
Vardy was magnificent and this was some way to celebrate the new three-and-a-half-year contract he will sign this week. He has now struck 18 Premier League goals this season and will probably never score a better one than the outrageous 25-yard volley that left Simon Mignolet clutching at thin air on the hour mark. It was a breathtaking moment of improvised brilliance and a strike Adrian Butchart, who was behind the Goal! movies and looking on from Vardy’s executive box, will do well to recreate.
Vardy, however, was not finished and added a second from six yards out, in the 72nd minute, to put the game beyond Liverpool and maintain Leicester’s three-point lead at the top of the table before Saturday’s pivotal game at Manchester City. “England’s No9” and “We’re gonna’ win the league” chanted Leicester’s jubilant supporters at the end. On this evidence, it is hard to disagree with either notion.
Leicester were superb and played with incredible intensity throughout, Claudio Ranieri’s players chasing every ball as if their lives depended on it. Yet they also produced some moments of genuine class, including a wonderful passage of one-touch football prior to Vardy’s second goal that would not have looked out of place at Camp Nou and ended with Shinji Okazaki going down in the area and appealing in vain for a penalty.
It was certainly some start to a trio of matches that many believe will define Leicester’s season and determine whether they really can go on and do the unthinkable – win the league. After their trip to the Etihad Stadium, Leicester travel to Arsenal the following Sunday and if they can come through those two fixtures still enjoying the view from the top, Leicester supporters can really start to dream.
This turned into a chastening experience for Liverpool. Jürgen Klopp prides himself on creating teams that press aggressively and cover every blade of grass, but the Liverpool manager was beaten at his own game here as Leicester worked tirelessly to close down their opponents, pinch possession and break with alacrity. “We didn’t give the Liverpool players time to think,” Ranieri said.
Fast and furious, the game was played at a breathless pace at times, in particular in the opening half hour, and the only surprise was that it took so long for the first goal to arrive. Mignolet had something to do with that, the Liverpool goalkeeper producing two outstanding first-half saves, pushing Okazaki’s point-blank header on to the bar, from Vardy’s exquisite cross, and then tipping Riyad Mahrez’s sumptuous curling shot over later in the first half.
Liverpool had their moments in the opening 45 minutes and got into some promising positions but lacked conviction when it mattered most. Mamadou Sakho and Roberto Firmino were playing a game of head-tennis in the Leicester area at one stage when either man could have gone for goal and Alberto Moreno should have done better with a wild left-footed shot shortly before half-time. Early in the second half Emre Can had a low 10-yard effort deflected wide after one of Liverpool’s best moves of the game.
Klopp’s team were beginning to take control at the start of the second half and Leicester, for the first time, looked a little ragged, but Vardy’s bolt from the blue changed everything. Mahrez, who is looking more and more like his old self after a dip in form over the festive period, deserves more than a passing mention for the vision and technique he showed to pick out Vardy’s run with a lofted pass from deep in the Leicester half.
It was the sort of ball that Vardy relishes yet this was no ordinary sprint into the channel. Sakho seemed to be pointing to Dejan Lovren to try and get across and put some pressure on Vardy as he stretched his legs but the England striker had his mind on only one thing and after letting the ball bounce thumped an audacious volley that flew into the near top corner.
Liverpool never recovered from that blow and conceded a second 11 minutes later. The industrious Okazaki tried his luck with a shot that deflected into the path of Vardy and the 29-year-old finished clinically, lifting a left-footed shot beyond Mignolet and into the far corner. Little wonder Hodgson looked so happy.
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