Return of the Fox in the Box
Jamie Vardy found his form with a sensational hat-trick against Manchester City.
LEICESTER CITY 4
Vardy (3, 20, 79), King (5)
MANCHESTER CITY 2
Kolarov (82), Nolito (90) LEICESTER CITY are back, Jamie Vardy is back – but where Manchester City have gone, heaven only knows!
The England striker grabbed a hat-trick after going 16 games without a goal.
This was the Champions playing like Champions. Two goals up in five minutes and three up in 20. Four clear before Aleksandar Kolarov and Nolito made the score look a little more respectable.
Not only did Vardy grab three, his partner- in- crime of last season, Riyad Mahrez, also put a significant stamp on two of Leicester’s strikes.
The two men who won last season’s main player of the year awards have been missing in action all season but this was them doing what they did when football writers and fellow professionals voted for them six months ago.
Andy King scored between Vardy’s first two trademark efforts and all Pep Guardiola could do was watch his expensively assembled side taken apart by pace and desire.
The suggestion had been that the hunger had gone. That the star status, the new contracts, even the £ 105,000 BMW supercars gifted to the squad by the owner had combined to remove what produced last season’s remarkable campaign.
Their return of just 13 points from their first 14 games had been the worst record of any defending champions since 1962.
Where they’d been hiding will probably remain a mystery but surely there will be no more talk of relegation fights.
On the other hand, the Spaniard’s title challenge now looks to be in deep trouble.
After making an electric start, their points tally of 30 from 15 games is by a distance Guardiola’s lowest as a manager.
Guardiola started with three at the back and it looked a disastrous decision when his team was two down after just five minutes.
Vardy’s scoring drought ended after three minutes. It was Mahrez who started the move with a flicked pass to Islam Slimani, and his ball to Vardy was clinically dispatched.
Two minutes later Slimani was again the architect, this time teeing up King after Robert Huth had won an aer ial challenge, and the Welshman’s right-foot shot from 22 yards curled past Claudio Bravo into the top corner.
It looked like the Leicester of last season – all fire, spirit and highintensity work- rate. Guardiola’s team simply couldn’t live with them.
If Slimani hadn’t missed a chance to make it three when he volleyed over from close range, City would have been out of the game inside 10 minutes.
Guardiola switch to a more familiar back four before the game was 15 minutes old but the damage looked to be done.
It certainly was five minutes later, when Mahrez’s got the most exquisite touch on Christian Fuchs’ long ball out of defence to send in Vardy, who coolly rounded Bravo to score.
Bravo saved from Mahrez, preventing total humiliation for the visitors – mind you, they always inflicted that on themselves with some suicidal passing.
The three- goal cushion allowed the Foxes to soak up pressure.
Keeper Ron- Robert Zieler fisted away a Kevin De Bruyne free- kick and Aleksandar Kolarov flashed a header wide but for all the possession gifted to them by Leicester, Guardiola’s men ran up blind alleys.
Leicester waited for another break and when it came in first-half stoppage time Slimani missed a real sitter when he headed Marc Albrighton’s cross wide.
Guardiola knew that his only slim chance of getting something from the match was an early second-half goal, and they piled into the Foxes.
Kelechi Iheanacho failed to make contact with a header right in front of goal, De Bruyne had a shot charged down by Albrighton and fizzed the rebound wide, Ilkay Gundogan shaved a post.
Guardiola made a double change on the hour, bringing on Raheem Sterling and Yaya Toure and using the big Ivorian as the main striker.
Slimani had another chance to seal it but shot straight at Bravo.
Vardy completed his hat- trick in the 78th minute when he seized on John Stones’ short back- pass, rounded Bravo and scored from the narrowest of angles.
Kolarov bent a direct free- kick past Zieler in the 82nd minute and there was another minor consolation a minute from time when sub Nolito fired in Kolarov’s cross.