NACHO REALLY DISHES IT OUT

His hat-trick pushes Blades further into wilderness

AS the last 12 months have underlined, necessity is the mother of invention.

Brendan Rodgers will relate to that as he has discovered a superb new attacking line-up amid injuries to key men.

Granted the Foxes were helped by the dire, blunted Blades who looked clueless and resigned to the drop post-Chris Wilder.

But to dish out this kind of hammering without the injured attacking duo of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes is some going.

Striker Jamie Vardy was unable to add to his single goal since Christmas but carried a massive threat up front alongside Kelechi Iheanacho and teed up two of the goals in his partner’s hat-trick.

The romp consolidated Leicester’s top-four spot and vindicated manager Rodgers’ decision to introduce Ayoze Perez in the hole behind the strikers.

Perez was superb and involved in Iheanacho’s opener before doubling the lead with a belter after the break.

Iheanacho added two more before Ethan Ampadu’s late own goal capped the visitors’ misery.

Rodgers said: “That combination of Vardy, Kels and Ayo was outstanding.”

Poor Paul Heckingbottom, promoted from his under-23 role at Bramall Lane to take charge at short notice, must have felt like watching through his hands in the second half.

He made four changes and went 3-5-2 as Wilder preferred, but the bottom club were even worse than previously.

Leicester looked capable of tearing them apart from early on, with Perez heading against a post in the 12th minute following Timothy Castagne’s cross.

It was just a surprise it took until six minutes before half-time for the first goal to arrive. Vardy crossed from the left and Iheanacho tucked in his seventh of the season in all competitions.

After the break, defender Chris Basham made a superb headed goal-line clearance to deny Vardy from Iheanacho’s unselfish lay-off.

But it was typical of

United’s sorry season that the second goal stemmed from a breakaway following a Blades freekick outside the home penalty area.

Sub Marc Albrighton did superbly to pick out Perez, who did the rest with a brilliant low right-foot shot with the outside of his boot from the edge of the area in the 64th minute.

It was just his second league goal of the season and marked his return to the side in style after a month out. Iheanacho made it 3-0 five minutes later with a remarkably similar finish to his opener as Vardy crossed from the left.

All three goals exploited space down the flanks of United’s threeman central defence. Iheanacho’s third was all his own work. He picked the ball up outside the box and let fly low into the bottom corner 12 minutes from time to claim his first hat-trick for the Foxes.

Leicester did not let up with the dire Blades there for the taking. Two minutes later Ampadu put a cross from Vardy past his own keeper to complete United’s biggest League defeat since 2000.

The Wilder era is gone but both supporters and players will cherish the fond memories even more with every painful loss like this.