PREMIER LEAGUE
BOSS Claudio Ranieri hailed Leicester’s best performance of the season after his gamble to bench Jamie Vardy paid off.
The Foxes clinched their first Premier League win for over a month with a 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace.
First league goals of the season from Ahmed Musa and Shinji Okazaki put Leicester in control before Christian Fuchs’ stunning half-volley sealed the win.
Victory extended Leicester’s unbeaten home record in the Premier League to 20 games and, after celebrating his birthday on Thursday, Ranieri believes the Foxes’ season starts now.
“I think it’s the best performance of the season,” he said. “For my birthday they have given me three points against Copenhagen and three points today.
“I saved my money because I said (if they got) a clean sheet I’d pay - maybe they don’t want (it) so fantastic. I save my money which is good. Sooner or later we’ll lose, but it’s important because today is the basement of our Premier League season. We won and played well and the only thing I don’t like is we conceded a goal. This week we made a very good performance against Copenhagen and today. It was important to come back and the first 20 minutes were more difficult as Crystal Palace started better than us, but after that we grew up a lot.”
STOKE boss Mark Hughes expects Xherdan Shaqiri to light up the Premier League on a regular basis after two brilliant strikes from the Switzerland international secured his side a 2-0 win at Hull.
Shaqiri, a club-record £12million signing from Inter Milan in August 2015, curled home a superb leftfooted effort midway through the first period and then bent a freekick inside Hull goalkeeper David Marshall’s left-hand post early in the second half.
“He’ll definitely score more this season,” said Hughes.
“Clearly he’s up and running now, he’s got three as we speak, and will clearly beat last season’s total (three) this time.
“If he continues in the same vein and shows the same application, there’s more goals to come from him.”
Stoke followed up last week’s first league win of the season against Sunderland with their first league success on the road after Shaqiri ran the show at the KCOM Stadium.
“He’s in good shape,” Hughes said. “He’s come back this season with real purpose and he’s very positive in every aspect of his work. Maybe last season he was getting to grips with the Premier League to a certain extent, but he feels, and looks, totally accustomed to the league now and has had a real impact... for us.”