Foxes put bite on Klopp title hopes

ADEMOLA Lookman stunned wasteful Liverpool as Leicester dealt a damaging blow to their title hopes.

The substitute struck to snatch a 1-0 win which ended the Reds’ 10-game unbeaten run and was just their second defeat of the season.

Liverpool should have been 2-0 up before then, Mohamed Salah missing his first Premier League penalty in four years and Sadio Mane blowing an excellent second-half chance.

The Foxes made them pay as Jurgen Klopp’s second-placed side dropped crucial points in the title race to sit six points behind Manchester City.

Victory breathed fresh life into the Foxes as they rose to ninth and five points off the top six after a difficult December which had seen them win just one of their previous six games and drop out of the Europa League.

Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers said: “Today was going to be a huge test of not our football, but our mentality and spirit.

“To come through it with a clean sheet and the resilience we showed, I am lost for words really because it was such a heroic performance in the context of the two games.”

He added: “We knew coming into this game, because of the scoreline against Man City, that the headlines were probably already written with how many goals Liverpool were going to score and all the injuries we had.

“But the beauty is that you write your own story in football and that is what we told the players before.”

Liverpool boss Klopp felt Leicester were worth their victory.

He said: “We were just not good enough. What we did with the ball was just not right. We played a really bad game, so it was well deserved (for Leicester).

“We should have had more of those moments. We had enough to get the win, but if you lose you need more of them.

“You could see it coming a little bit. They had one shot on target and didn’t have plenty of chances.

“We should have defended better. We do that usually, why we didn’t do it is hard to explain. There were so many performances below normal level, there’s no explanation.”

On Liverpool’s title ambitions, Klopp said: “It’s a big gap. If we play our normal football, we have the chance to win more football games.

“A defeat is a defeat. We have to learn and we will.”

Leicester City’s Ademola Lookman, second left, celebrates with team-mates after scoring to inflict a rare defeat for Liverpool.