POPE’S THE SAVIOUR Penalty stop inspires Burnley
BReNDAN RODGeRs admitted that his leicester players’ confidence had taken a hit after Nick Pope’s penalty save from Jamie Vardy inspired Burnley to inflict a fourth defeat in six league games on their opponents.
After five months largely free from blemishes, Rodgers’ team are starting to stutter ever so slightly. they remain in an excellent position — third in the table with an 11-point cushion over fifth-placed Manchester united — and have surpassed expectations for most of the campaign, but they have now lost successive matches against southampton and Burnley.
leicester were ahead at halftime through Harvey Barnes’ low strike, and Pope had a superb second half, keeping out Vardy’s spot-kick in the 68th minute with the score at 1-1. Chris Wood had equalised from close range for Burnley 12 minutes earlier.
the home side took advantage and ended a sequence of four straight losses when Ashley Westwood
drilled home 11 minutes from time to take the Clarets five points clear of the bottom three.
to complicate the leicester picture, Rodgers was unclear about the reasons for the absence of midfielder Hamza Choudhury and defender Ben Chilwell, neither of whom were included in the squad.
When asked why, the manager would say only: ‘they were just unavailable for the training. We were doing a lot of preparation for this game and they were unable to be there.’ Chilwell travelled to turf Moor with the rest of the squad; Choudhury did not.
Rodgers said: ‘the character of the team is not in question. Maybe confidence is not where it’s been for most of the season but the only way you put that right is by working twice as hard.
‘until a few weeks ago the consistency was very good and when you have young players up there for the first time, the physicality has to stay up there. it’s new for a lot of the players but that is something they will be able to recover from.’
though neither side started particularly brightly, leicester
always looked more dangerous and they took the lead soon after the half-hour mark. dennis Praet won possession on halfway and the ball ran to Barnes. The wide man charged past Ben Mee and unleashed a firm drive Pope could not keep out.
The Foxes could have made it 2-0 at the start of the second half but Pope brilliantly saved Praet’s curling effort, and his team-mates thanked him by equalising soon afterwards.
Following dwight McNeil’s corner, Kasper Schmeichel could only palm Mee’s header across goal, where wood reacted to turn in the loose ball.
Then came Pope’s decisive intervention. Barnes was dragged down by Mee and the VAR check forced Vardy to wait more than a minute to take the kick. His effort lacked power and was too close to Pope, who parried it into the path of ricardo Pereira. when the Portugal full-back hooked the ball back across goal, Barnes was a fraction away from turning in his second of the game.
‘Pope was very good today,’ said Burnley boss Sean dyche. ‘He did not have a ridiculous amount to do but when he did he made big saves, which is an important quality for a top keeper.’
Burnley made the most of that double let-off to score the winning goal. Charlie Taylor sent in another testing cross that caught Jonny evans off balance. The defender’s attempted clearance bobbled across the box where westwood, running from midfield, was in the perfect spot to drill past Schmeichel.