Zaha strikes to get Hodgson party rolling
The score might make this defeat appear almost respectable for Leicester City but nobody should be fooled, including their manager, Claude Puel. While his team passed the ball competently and with ambition between the two penalty areas, they simply could not live with the electric pace of Bournemouth’s forwards or match it when they had the ball themselves.
They were 3-0 down at the interval and finished with only 10 men after captain Wes Morgan’s frustration boiled over in the second half, but it could have been nine with England defender Harry Maguire, who was nowhere near his heroic World Cup form, lucky not to be shown a second yellow card before the interval.
Ryan Fraser, who was a doubt after sustaining a hamstring injury while on international duty with Scotland, scored the first two goals and created the fourth for Adam Smith, and Joshua King and Callum Wilson gave Morgan and Maguire a torrid afternoon. King scored the third from a penalty.
“It was a tough afternoon, strange,” Puel said. “It was not a fair reflection. We had good chances against a good team and it will be important that this game is just an accident. Perhaps we lacked some concentration in some situations and have to correct the defensive aspect, all the team, not just the defenders and we have to prevent these goals conceded because it’s a handicap for us.”
Puel bemoaned the fact that the home side scored with their only three first-half shots on target but that, perhaps, only pointed up his team’s wastefulness. Jamie Vardy, returning from a three-match suspension, missed early on when unmarked and then allowed goalkeeper Asmir Begovic to block another effort.
After 19 minutes, King’s reverse-pass went through the legs of Ricardo Pereira to Fraser, who cut inside Morgan and swerved a shot around Kasper Schmeichel. Maguire, booked for tripping Wilson, was lucky to escape a second yellow when he body-checked King. But fortune swung against Leicester when Begovic parried James Maddison’s shot on to the bar.
Instead of being level, Leicester went two down three minutes later, when Fraser rolled his shot past Scheichel with Maguire looking unwilling to risk a tackle. Five minutes before the interval, it was 3-0 after Pereira, driven to distraction by Fraser, handled under very little pressure from King, who hit the penalty home.
Leiceser looked for a reply but Morgan hardly helped when he steamed through Dan Gosling and Adam Smith to earn a second yellow and an early shower. And after 81 minutes, Fraser crossed from the left for Smith to volley Bournemouth’s fourth.
James Maddison’s late penalty, generously awarded after Pereira tumbled over Diego Rico’s challenge, and substitute Marc Albrighton’s glancing header only distorted the scoreline.
Eddie Howe, the Bournemouth manager, pronounced himself “very pleased”. “We were ruthless in front of goal and defended very well. That has not been the story of our season.” Class and quality invariably win Premier League games and few provided a more obvious example of it than this. Wilfried Zaha returned to training only on Thursday, but was able to provide Roy Hodgson with the anniversary present he wanted as he celebrated a year in the Crystal Palace job.
The winger collected a Jordan Ayew pass on the left, cut inside two defenders and curled a right-foot shot beyond Jonas Lossl to deliver a real moment of class on 38 minutes.
It proved the decisive moment in a game where he had become the pantomime villain for more than 20,000 passionate home supporters. Zaha was the victim of a lunge from Mathias Jorgensen 10 minutes before his goal and was furious when referee Lee Mason brandished only a yellow card, later going as far as to say he may need to suffer serious injury before opponents were punished for fouling him.
He took his frustration out with his own dreadful tackle on Huddersfield wing-back Florent Hadergjonaj. He looked in danger of being sent off but recovered his composure to become the game’s dominant force.
As Huddersfield chased the game in the second period, it was Zaha whose pace looked like cutting them open on the break. Hodgson said it was fitting reward for the winger after he confounded doctors to play.
“It was a wonderful goal,” said Hodgson. “Wilf was lively throughout and he deserves enormous credit because the groin injury he picked up would have kept many a player out for a lot longer. Had we had the margin of the second goal, I would have replaced him, but I didn’t want to because he was the one who looked like he could break away and get that second goal.”
How David Wagner must yearn for a Zaha at Huddersfield. This was a fifth successive league game without a goal at home and while Wagner’s side offered commitment and effort they must find a cutting edge to stay up.
The Huddersfield manager felt his team were unlucky. He said: “The players deserved something. This was the best performance of the season, defensively solid, they looked in control, offensively they created opportunities, put the ball in the box, crosses, second phases when we were unlucky. We have this one moment of Wilf Zaha where we should have
done it better.”