SO NOW THE REAL FOXES STAND UP
Claudio goes and Leicester look champion
JAMIE VARDY landed a right-hander on a corner flag, Kasper Schmeichel double-punched the air, Danny Drinkwater screamed delight.
Player-power, eh? Whether it got Claudio Ranieri the sack or not, two things are for sure.
On the pitch under Ranieri, it had been switched off.
With Claudio gone, it was back on again.
Read into that what you like, probably the obvious.
But to the board and the fans, any betrayal of Ranieri might not matter so much now. Even title-winning, sentimental loyalty can be fleeting. With Vardy
scoring twice and Danny Drinkwater hitting a beauty, this was the fairytale Leicester, the champions.
There was almost an inevitability about their rediscovered vigour, an unavoidable and welcome consequence of the players being painted as ungrateful, unfit, disinterested schemers.
No-one was more reinvigorated than Vardy, noone can put as much venom into the angry celebration as he can. Not that any sort of celebration has been too common this season.
When he scampered past two caravan-towing centrehalves and finished like a Footballer of the Year should finish, it was his first Premier League goal since that hattrick against Manchester City in December.
Liverpool conveniently parted down the middle as City had but Marc Albrighton’s pass was still a peach. This was the Albrighton of the titlewinning team and you could ditto that throughout the line-up. It was certainly true in Drinkwater’s case.
Not only did he assert a degree of dominance in midfield, he produced the sort of strike that was a testament to technique that has deserted him too often this season, a carefully controlled 25-yard volley fading away from Simon Mignolet. On a night of pointed, euphoric reactions, Drinkwater went for the roaring knee-slide as the Thai owners hand-slapped the punters within high-fiving reach of the heated seats. The feeling in those privileged parts was clearly one of relief. Relief there were gestures rather than backlashes among the fans. A march to the stadium seemed as much in honour of Claudio Ranieri as an angry protest against his dismissal while, inside the stadium, you would have needed some amplifier to pick up any sort of mutinous muttering. And whether the neutral likes it or not, why would there be?
Why would there be when Vardy and Riyad Mahrez were chasing lost causes like they used to do?
That is what led to the third. An overhit pass from a team-mate might have been frowned at by Mahrez until now, instead he chased it down, had an exchange with Christian Fuchs, whose cross was emphatically headed in by Vardy.
The goal underlined the staggering mediocrity of Liverpool here, two weeks of rest, recreation and warmweather training left them in vacation mode.
Despite the pleasantlytaken goal from Philippe Coutinho, this was a performance that again seriously beings their top-four credentials into question.
Leicester took full advantage, and the fans were back to their thunderously supportive.
After the third went in, there was a phone-lit, fullthroated tribute to Ranieri bellowed around the ground. If he had been watching, you suspect he would have turned off well before that moment.