Vardy’s strike brings joy back to Leicester
Leicester City manager Enzo Maresca’s message was clear, as his side showed they were far from finished in the race for promotion.
The Italian coach had seen Leicester’s 14-point gap to third place eroded over the past six weeks, as they dropped out of the top two. Friday’s 1-0 defeat at Bristol City, and the reaction of unhappy fans, did nothing to dispel a nagging sense of implosion.
Maresca had called for “collective unity” from supporters in his programme notes, but afterwards he made it clear he would not be changing his methods.
“I think the fans were there, we tried to make them happy by winning the game,” Maresca said. “I can understand that, for them, it’s the only thing that matters. But I know that sometimes they want us to attack, and be more direct, but it’s never going to happen while I’m here.”
But, after 20 minutes, it looked as though the recent malaise would be continuing as Leicester suffered a communication breakdown at a Norwich corner and Gabriel Sara was allowed to move at will among the markers and score from close range.
That could easily have hit Leicester’s confidence; instead, the goal galvanised them, and they dominated the rest of the game.
Goals from Kiernan Dewsburyhall, Stephy Mavididi – who were both finding the net in the Championship for the first time since January – put Maresca’s side ahead. Jamie Vardy, who came on as a second-half substitute, made sure of the points in stoppage time.
The wild celebrations on the touchline summed up Maresca’s relief.
Patson Daka could have been more alert for Sara’s goal, but the comeback began with Wilfred Ndidi’s superb deep cross after 33 minutes which was met by Mavididi, who set up Dewsbury-hall to head the equaliser.
Leicester took the lead in the 62nd minute when Dewsbury-hall set up Mavididi, who shrugged off Jack Stacey before curling the ball into the far corner.
Vardy settled it in the third minute of stoppage time when he pounced after Harry Winks’s shot was blocked.
Maresca explained the feeling of relief was clear. “It was especially for the moment, because for different reasons, we didn’t win so many games.
“So, this was important, because we are in the final part of the season. But then we started by conceding a goal, and 1-0 down from a corner, we needed to be mentally strong.
“But after that, the game was completely in our control, we dominated.
“Probably in the last six games,
we won one game and it was the one we didn’t deserve – Sunderland. We lost four games, and not one of them we deserved to lose.
“At the end, we are human beings – we have emotions so when we scored the last one with Jamie, the game was finished, so we were all happy and we enjoyed the moment.”
Maresca knows that wins are needed now to secure a top-two finish. Norwich stayed in the top six ahead of Saturday’s East Anglian derby with Ipswich. But manager David Wagner conceded his side would need to improve after failing to build on the opening goal.
The German coach said: “We’re better than we showed here. This is disappointing, but it can happen.
“I’ll quickly put this to bed, because we’ll speak about the truth. I have so much trust and belief in the guys, I know they’ll have the biggest fire in their belly for the Ipswich game.
“We were not good enough to get some points out of this game.
“It was very clear that too many individuals did not do what they are capable of doing. But they are humans and, for us, it is important to make sure that everybody is on the same page and our demands are higher than what we showed here.”