High five!
Vardy hat-trick stuns ex-champs
BRENDAN Rodgers branded Leicester City’s astounding 5-2 win at Manchester City as the “best result” in his time as the club’s manager.
Jamie Vardy’s hat-trick plus strikes from James Maddison and Youri Tielemans sent Leicester back to the top of the Premier League in one of their most memorable matches since the title-winning campaign.
The visitors sat back and used their blistering pace on the counter to exploit weaknesses in Pep Guardiola’s defence, with Rodgers overjoyed at the way his team put the tactic into practice.
“It’s the best result (of my tenure), that’s for sure,” said Rodgers. “The performance and result were outstanding.
“We saw how good they were last week, we knew it would be a test for us. Throughout the course of the game, we set up the team tactically differently. We’re normally high pressing, but we wanted to deny them space. We knew we had the players to break out on the counter.
“To go a goal behind, we showed calmness, they didn’t panic. It showed the development of the team.
“The higher you press against them, they exploit the space they’ve left. They won’t have seen too many of my teams play like that.
“The players believed in (the tactics). We went with a back five and I thought the wing-backs were exceptional, but particularly JJ (James Justin) as they were trying to overload on him. He coped with that as well as being offensively very good.
“But it was a whole team performance. You can’t come here and perform like we did unless the team performs in a synchronised way.”
Rodgers also said the result proved that any suggestion Leicester may struggle following their disappointing end to last season is not accurate.
“Whatever people felt about us, it didn’t matter. We know the mentality of the team.”