Mahrez fires Leicester top, Stoke submerge City

LONDON, DEC 5, 2015 (AFP) -Riyad Mahrez scored a hat-trick as Leicester City won 3-0 at Swansea City on Saturday to recapture the Premier League summit from Manchester City, who crashed to defeat at Stoke City.

Leicester striker Jamie Vardy was bidding to equal Jimmy Dunne’s 83-year-old English top-flight record by scoring for the 12th game running, but it was Mahrez who stole the show at the Liberty Stadium.

The Algerian winger took his tally for the campaign to 10 goals, putting him joint-second behind 14-goal Vardy in the scoring charts and lifting Claudio Ranieri’s men two points clear at the top of the standings.

Mahrez broke the deadlock in the fifth minute when Marc Albrighton’s left-wing corner struck him and bounced in, before N’golo Kante’s pass enabled him to run through and add a second goal in the 22nd minute.

After Ki Sung-yueng had hit the bar for the hosts, Vardy teed up Mahrez for his hat-trick goal in the 67th minute as Leicester generated yet more negative headlines for Swansea manager Garry Monk.

Manchester City were well beaten at a windswept Britannia Stadium, where Stoke prevailed 2-0 courtesy of a pair of early goals that were each created by Xherdan Shaqiri and finished by Marko Arnautovic.

Manuel Pellegrini’s side were left in third place, three points behind Leicester, and the City manager blamed fatigue for his team’s performance.

“We are playing in other competitions with the same 13 or 14 players,” said Pellegrini, whose side have won only once in four league outings.