Champions face relegation battle, admits Ranieri
CLAUDIO RANIERI cried at the Stadium of Light last season. They were tears of joy as Leicester moved to within three wins of a guaranteed title.
The Italian might well have sobbed again last night as the worst title defence in Premier League history threatens to descend into a scrap for survival. Ranieri himself did not even reject talk of relegation following defeat against a Sunderland side who had made the worst-ever 10-game start to a Premier League season.
‘We are missing everything,’ declared the Leicester boss after a fifth straight league game without victory. ‘Everything last season was right. This season, everything is wrong. I think now there are a lot of teams involved in the relegation battle. We are one of those teams.’
There were rumours before kick-off that Ranieri was set to axe Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. He didn’t, but perhaps he wishes he had.
Vardy scored both goals in that 2-0 victory here in April and within three weeks Leicester were champions. But this was a 16th club match without a goal for the England forward, who exactly one year ago set a new Premier League record by scoring in 12 consecutive games.
But it was opposite number Jermain Defoe who looked more like the international striker yesterday afternoon and his 250th career goal took David Moyes’s men to within two points of the champions. They remain in the drop zone but three wins from four has restored belief.
‘If we can win another three out of four we will be in a good position,’ said Moyes. ‘We are winning and we are playing better. We’re much more of an attacking side now and Defoe has made the difference again. But we have to mention Victor [Anichebe] as well. We needed him to turn the game in our favour.’
Anichebe was excellent but so, too, were fellow frontmen Defoe and Duncan Watmore, who left the field on a stretcher and looks to have suffered a serious knee injury.
But by then 22-year-old Watmore had already helped his side into a winning position. He won the 64th-minute corner from which Seb Larsson delivered, Jan Kirchhoff flicked on and Leicester defender Robert Huth turned into his own net.
Watmore then drove into the area and saw his low blast blocked by Huth, and Defoe followed up to smash his eighth of the season.
Leicester substitute Shinji Okazaki hooked in at the near post to set up a nervy finale and the hosts needed Pickford to repel Wes Morgan’s close-range strike five minutes into stoppage-time. That Sunderland were left hanging on owed much to their profligacy during a blistering opening 20 minutes. The game wasn’t 60 seconds old when Watmore was unlucky to see a shot on the turn saved by a well-positioned Ron-Robert Zieler.
Anichebe then failed to find a way around Morgan from 12 yards and Defoe swiped at fresh air from similar range. Leicester rallied and Vardy twice headed wide while Christian Fuchs saw a cross crack the angle of post and bar in first-half injury-time.
Islam Slimani thought he had scored when Marc Albrighton drilled a low ball across the box and he stabbed towards goal from six yards out, only for Papy Djilobodji to block with his midriff in the goalmouth, not that the Sunderland defender knew too much about it. It proved a crucial intervention and the hosts were in front moments later. Defoe doubled the lead before Okazaki sparked hope of what would have been an undeserved point for the visitors.
It might have been Moyes crying had Pickford not produced that last-gasp save from Morgan.