Leicester welcomed Liverpool to the King Power on the 27th of February. Leicester City were, as we know, mangerless after sacking their hero who won them their first title in their 132 long year history. Craig Shakespeare took was appointed as the interim manager, one who didn’t have the best of relations to Claudio Ranieri when in the 2015/16 season he was almost like his best friend. There were banners all around the stadium of The Tinker Man who last season wrote one of the greatest stories of sporting history.
The match started with Craig Shakespeare naming a starting eleven, which was almost identical to last season. Leicester attacked the Liverpool goal and we needed some good saves from our number one Simon Mignolet. Liverpool was nothing compared to Leicester in the first few moments.
This attacking intent from the Champions did pay on in the 28th minute where Jamie Vardy followed on his form, which he displayed in Sevilla. This was a typical Leicester goal from last season; winning it back in the midfield and pinging it to their main man Jamie Vardy who opened the scoring for Leicester, not only in this match but in the Premier League in 2017. Liverpool’s high line was caught napping and Lucas was so called as the guilty party.
Leicester’s attacking prowess wasn’t to stop as Danny Drinkwater banged it from 25 yards and there was nothing that the Liverpool It was an absolute belter of a hit from Drinkwater in the 39th minute, doubling the score for the Foxes.
Liverpool seemed that they were still in their training camp in Spain. Liverpool couldn’t have been much worse after a 12 day break in sunny La Manga.
Liverpool came out at half time changing tactics to a 3-4-3 and Klopp looked all charged up and wanting immediate impact from his boys in Red.
This formation change didn’t payoff for the Reds as Riyad Mahrez and Fuchs double-teamed Clyne, Fuchs whipping in a ball which found Vardy’s head and Vardy found the back of the net. Liverpool were three down and had it all to do!
Liverpool didn’t crack under the later pressure and they did grab a consolation from the magician that is Philippe Coutinho, who dribbled past two and put it past Leicester’s player of the season Kasper Schmeichel who had been stellar till this goal.
Liverpool did bring on Divock Origi and Alberto Moreno to pinch them back into the game. This didn’t work, because other than one tame effort from Origi they were non-existent in the game. 17-year-old Ben Woodburn was Liverpool’s last substitute for the game but we hardly got a kick and referee Michael Oliver blew for the final whistle and King Power literally erupted.
Liverpool were anything but good in this fixture and they have to win their games against the lower end sides in the Premier League otherwise Top4 will become a distant dream.
