LONDON - After being dominated for all but the last ten minutes of the first half, Leicester came back strongly to take control. Jamie Yardy inspired the team to inflict an overwhelming 5-2 defeat on Manchester City and completed his second hat-trick against Pep Guardiola’s side. In 685 previous matches as a manager, Guardiola had not seen five goals conceded by his teams.
He said: “It’s tough but we have to accept it. We didn’t create much and started to think we weren’t playing well. We put pressure on ourselves to score the second but we have to be calmer. We were anxious, we got nervous when not creating chances. We told them at half-time that they were playing good, try to be patient. Then to concede the second and third it became more difficult.”
Guardiola went on to say: “They defended deep. We don’t have players to attack in the box. It’s difficult when a team plays deep and doesn’t run. We need to be more patient, not chase the second and third goals. It’s not easy to accept it. Maybe we should let them get out more and punish them on the counter.”
Leicester restricted City to just two chances in the first half, one of which gave them the lead. It came from a corner which was not cleared well and Mahrez sent a powerful shot into the top left corner. Seven minutes before the break the visitors equalised when Yardy took a pass from Harvey Barnes, got the better of Kyle Walker and was brought down. He made no mistake with the first of his two penalties.
Leicester’s second and third goals came two minutes apart. In the 54th minute, Tim Castagne after receiving a beautiful pass from Yiouri Tielemans, crossed from the right, the ball went past Mendy and Nathan Aka and Yardy nipped in to flick into the net. He then went on to complete his hat-trick from the resulting penalty when Eric Garcia fouled him. It got worse for City in the 77th minute when substitute James Maddison cut in from the left to hit a looping angled shot from 25 yards.
From an embarrassing score-line of 4-1, Nathan Ake pulled one back for City. His header from a corner five minutes from time brought him his first goal for his club. But Leicester weren’t finished yet. They were awarded a third penalty when Mendy fouled Maddison with just two minutes remaining. Yardy had left the field a couple of minutes earlier and so it was Tielemans who took the spot-kick, his powerful drive gave no chance to Ederson.
Asked if it was the best performance since taking over as Leicester manager, Brendan Rodgers said: “It’s the best result for sure. We showed a great mentality. We didn’t panic. We knew we could push on in the second half.”
He explained his game plan a little: “We set the team up to play a little differently. We’re normally high pressing but we wanted to deny them space deeper. You won’t have seen too many of my teams play like that. You have to work like hell against City. We were such a threat offensively.”
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