Jamie Vardy rediscovered his superb goal scoring form from last season as his hat-trick against Manchester City helped Leicester City to a much needed win 4-2 win against Pep Guardiola's side with Andy King getting the other goal. Jamie Vardy and Leicester have been struggling for goals this season but they were back to their best against Manchester City where they took a 2-0 lead in just under five minutes.
Leicester City went into this match on the back of a two disappointing defeats at the hands on Sunderland and a 5-0 hammering in the Champions League against Porto. Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri showed his appreciation for Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez who looked much like the players from last season that helped Leicester City win the league.
"The big champions react at the right moment, When Mahrez and Vardy play well, and often we win. Today they made a fantastic performance, a fantastic effort for the team. That's what I love. We aren't a big team, but we can do something good when we play together. We prepared so well for the match; we know all the triangles they try to do to the last third. We closed them down very well. Of course, at the end we were a little tired and they scored twice, but the performance was good" Goal.com quoted the Leicester City manager as saying.
Manchester City clearly missed the likes of Sergio Aguero, Fernandihno and Otamendi who were all suspended for this match. Pep Guardiola had to do with a make shift defense which saw Kolarov at center back and Sagna at left back. Other than the first 20 minutes of the match, Manchester City dominated the match but lacked the finishing touch to get goals. They had 77.7% of the possession, made 705 passes and had a 90% pass accuracy but could not deliver that final ball in the box to get a goal. Manchester City did look a lot more threatening in the final 10 minutes after Kolarov and Nolito got on the score sheet.
Despite a poor performance from Manchester City, Pep Guardiola said his team did not have a bad match.
"I have to improve to solve that, yeah, that's true. I want to play the football of how I feel... because the basics of the way we play during the season - except a few times - it was quite good. So I cannot say today we played bad, that we didn't play with the intention to create, but after four minutes at 2-0 [down], after the third goal, how we played the second half, we tried, but of course we concede a lot of goals" the Manchester City boss was quoted as saying.
Leicester City will be hoping this win can turn their season. Winning the title is far out of reach for them but they can use this win as a major confidence boost going into the second half of the season. Manchester City on the other had could be as far as seven points behind Chelsea if they manage to win against West Bromwich later today. If Manchester City are to be considered title contenders this season they cannot afford to drop anymore points considering they face the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool before the year ends.
Click here to watch all goals and match highlights.
