Foxes top Palace, back in 3rd
CAGLAR Soyuncu’s first goal for his club and a late effort by Jamie Vardy earned Leicester City a 2-0 win at Crystal Palace to move it back into third place in the English Premier League yesterday.
Turkish center back Soyuncu broke the deadlock at Selhurst Park, heading home James Maddison’s 57th-minute corner.
Vardy fired in his 10th league goal of the season late on to seal the points and a third successive win for Leicester.
After last week’s runaway 9-0 thrashing of Southampton, Leicester produced a controlled performance to move to 23 points from 11 games, two behind Manchester City.
Palace, which could have gone fifth with a win, struggled to create clear chances and remained in ninth place.
Meanwhile, City manager Pep Guardiola accused Sadio Mane of diving after the Liverpool forward’s match-winning display against Aston Villa.
Mane scored the winner in the fourth minute of stoppage time at Villa Park on Saturday, but only after being booked for simulation in the first half.
Guardiola’s City remained six points behind leader Liverpool with a comeback win of its own, beating Southampton, courtesy of a late Kyle Walker goal.
When asked whether he was aware of Liverpool’s dramatic win, Guardiola told the BBC: “It has happened many times, what Liverpool have done, in the last few years, it’s because (Mane) is a special talent.
“Sometimes he’s diving, sometimes he has this talent to score incredible goals in the last minute.”
Mane has been in the spotlight in recent weeks after earning two penalties — against Leicester and Tottenham last month — with Liverpool converting each time to win both games.
City visits Anfield next Sunday, where it has failed to win in the league since 2003.
“If it’s one time, two times, ‘we were lucky, we were lucky’, but it happened in the last two seasons many, many times — they have a special character to do that,” Guardiola said of Liverpool’s ability to score late goals. “We look at ourselves, we know which team we face, I think they have won 10 and drawn one. Next week we go to Anfield to try to play them.”
(Reuters)