FOXES GO GOAL MADD
Maddison and Vardy too hot to handle as Seagulls are shot to pieces
LEICESTER 3
Maddison 27, 44, Vardy 41
BRIGHTON 0
JAMES MADDISON gave England boss Gareth Southgate a sharp Euro reminder. The 24-year-old scored two belters to knock the stuffing out of Brighton. Maddi son has made no secret of his disappointment at being overlooked by the England boss for the recent games with Ireland, Iceland and Belgium.
Summer hip surgery may have influenced Southgate’s decision but the midfielder’s precocious talent is there for all to see now.
He destroyed the Seagulls, who had actually made a decent start and might well have taken the lead through Danny Welbeck. The former England striker was denied by a superb Kasper Schmeichel block and that was to be Brighton’s last real threat.
Maddison ( left) opened the scoring midway through the first half just after Jamie Vardy had thumped a shot against the post.
He seized on a half-clearance on the edge of the box and swept a left- foot shot towards the bottom corner of the net.
Mat Ryan didn’t really deal with it and was left thumping the ground in frustration after allowing the ball to squeeze
between his fingertips and his left-hand post.
Five minutes before the break Vardy (below) did what he does best, steaming in to meet a James Justin cross on the edge of the six-yard box and opening his feet to divert it past Ryan
It was Vardy’s 10th Premier League goal of the season.
Brighton didn’t know what had hit them but there was worse to come a couple of minutes before the break when Maddison (celebrating, above) scored a show-stopper.
Vardy cut the ball back to him and, though his immediate view of goal was obscured, he jinked one way then the other before curling a gorgeous leftfoot shot into the top corner.
The Foxes went into the game desperately trying to bolster a home record which must have caused manager Brendan Rodgers some sleepless nights. Three defeats in their previous four home games made miserable reading. Brighton had the opposite problem – their only two threepointers this campaign have come away from The Amex.
The Foxes forced a couple of corners in the first two minutes and Maddison might have done better with an angled shot that screwed way off target.
Then the midfielder turned provider, laying a ball into the path of Marc Albrighton, who warmed keeper Ryan’s fingers with a stinging angled drive.
But Brighton decided enough was enough and started to take a hand.
Alireza Jahanbakhsh’s sweeping left- foot shot forced Schmeichel to dive to the foot of his post to save and the Foxes keeper was really tested to the full a couple of minutes later.
Solly March started the move with a slick pass and Jahanbakhsh split the back-line with a pass straight into the path of Welbeck.
The former Manchester United man was one on one with Schmeichel and probably favourite to score but the keeper was having none of it and produced a brilliant block.
That was a warning Leicester heeded and, once Maddison had broken the deadlock, there was just no holding them.
That’s three wins on the spin now for Leicester and, after a blip in November, they are up to third place in the Premier League table, just a point behind joint-leaders Spurs and Liverpool.