VARD TIMES
Mourinho’s ‘ponies’ complete a nightmare week with one point from a possible nine as familiar foes come back to haunt them
THE pony appears to have fallen at the first fence.
Jose Mourinho has spent much of the season playing down his team’s title chances compared to the thoroughbreds like Liverpool and Manchester City.
Now a disastrous week has seen Tottenham take just one point from a possible nine to fall six points behind leaders Liverpool.
And yesterday it was two familiar faces that lay behind their stumble at White Hart Lane.
Jamie Vardy is an absolute nightmare to play against.
His pace, determination and prolific record as a party-pooper against the big boys is the main reason why Leicester are such a superb counter-attacking team.
But Spurs’ Serge Aurier was also back to his bad old ways with a moment of madness to concede a penalty in first-half injury time which Vardy converted to put the Foxes on course for victory.
Incredibly, it was Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers’ first victory over Mourinho in eight meetings as the visitors thoroughly deserved the points – and even the Spurs boss could not say otherwise this time.
Tottenham looked tired, second best and even lacking in inspiration up front.
This season is already looking like a war of attrition. Maybe that’s why Mourinho says his players are like ponies in a horse race.
But they also came up against a team who like to counter attack just as much as they do – and they ran out of ideas. For a long time, it felt like both teams were waiting for the other to make the first move. Who would blink first?
Sure enough, a big mistake came a minute into added time at the end of the first half.
Leicester defender Wesley Fofana was going nowhere on the edge of Tottenham’s penalty box, yet Aurier came charging into the back of him and it was the clearest penalty you will see all season.
Inexplicably, referee Craig Pawson waited for VAR Paul Tierney to make the decision for him. It is rather worrying that Pawson did not spot the obvious foul, and a dangerous path for VARs to start refereeing games.
Pawson went to the video screen, saw what everyone else had first time around and gave a penalty. Vardy slammed it home to give Leicester a half-time lead.
Vardy has now scored 58 goals in away games since August 2014, a record only bettered by Harry Kane with 79.
But Aurier must shoulder the blame. Mourinho has done many things in the past 13 months in charge and his reinvention of Aurier from reckless liability to reliable full-back has been nothing short of remarkable.
The manager even admitted in Tottenham’s Amazon documentary that he was “afraid” of Aurier as a marker and told him he was “capable of doing a sh*t penalty with VAR”.
Since the 2017-18 season, Aurier has conceded four penalties, which is second only to David Luiz ( five) in that period.
From the spotkick on, it was Leicester’s game.
James Maddison had the ball in the net three minutes after the restart only for it to be disallowed by the tightest of margins by the VAR. But the second goal was coming. Leicester’s pace and movement made Spurs look sluggish and jaded.
Marc Albrighton’s deep cross found Vardy at the back post, and his header across goal struck Toby Alderweireld, who deflected it past his keeper Hugo Lloris.
Tottenham tried to come back, Mourinho bringing on Gareth Bale at half-time. Lucas Moura and Harry Winks followed, but the closest they came was HeungMin Son’s closerange effort which was bri l liantly saved by Leicester keeper Kasper Schmeichel.
So despite having had a good season, Spurs now head into Christmas with many of their chickens coming home to roost.