Palace climb out of bottom three with win at Leicester
PREMIER LEAGUE Crystal Palace slam three goals to earn their first win away from home
LONDON: Christian Benteke redeemed himself by scoring for the first time this season and ended Crystal Palace’s long wait for an away goal as Roy Hodgson’s resurgent team defeated Leicester City 3-0 in the Premier League.
Benteke incurred the wrath of his team-mates by taking a penalty against the manager’s orders and failing to score in a 2-2 draw against Bournemouth last weekend.
The Belgium international made amends by scoring his first goal of the campaign at King Power Stadium, before setting up Wilfried Zaha for the visitors’ second five minutes before halftime.
Leicester had a goal ruled out and saw Wilfred Ndidi sent off in the second half, as the 2015-16 champions failed to force their way back into the contest, Bakary Sako adding gloss to the scoreline for the visitors with a third in injury time.
UNBEATEN
Palace are now unbeaten in seven matches since losing 1-0 to Tottenham early last month and, having now moved out of the bottom three, will prepare for another winnable fixture away to bottom-of-the-table Swansea City next weekend.
Having seen their own fourmatch winning run come to an end, Leicester have a daunting EFL Cup fixture at home to Manchester City coming up on Tuesday, before the visit of Manchester United in the league.
Palace started confidently and threatened the Leicester goal through Jeffrey Schlupp and Ruben Loftus-Cheek inside the first 11 minutes.
But Claude Puel’s team did not heed those warning signs, as the visitors capitalised on their early pressure by opening the scoring in the 19th minute.