Pérez and Gray goals reward revitalised Leicester in win over Sheffield United
This is how a team redeems itself. After their wobbles degenerated into a full-scale collapse at Bournemouth on Sunday, Leicester picked themselves up and tore Sheffield United apart here.
Suddenly their ropey form and long injury list do not look so problematic for Brendan Rodgers’ men, who reasserted the class that made them worthy contenders for a top-four finish. This was their best performance of the year, let alone since the Premier League’s restart. The final-day showdown with Manchester United has just got even more enticing.
“It was a brilliant reaction [to the Bournemouth defeat],” said Rodgers. “This was the response we wanted. We showed our true face. We’re in the position we’re in because of many performances like that.”
But none of those performances had come in recent months, and a nadir was reached at Bournemouth. Rodgers had described that humiliation as a freak occurrence but must have feared it was a low point from which his team’s confidence could not return, especially given a number of absences that kept growing, with Caglar Soyuncu’s suspension compounding injuries to a slew of first-choice players. Rodgers revealed that James Maddison, Ben Chilwell and
Christian Fuchs are out for the rest of the season.
The manager had to reconfigure his defence for this match and hailed the influence of the 36-year-old Wes Morgan, who excelled on his first start since December. But it was a debutant nearly half Morgan’s age who impressed most as Leicester regained their dignity and menace in style.
The 19-year-old Luke Thomas was entrusted with his first senior start owing to the loss of Chilwell and Fuchs. Operating at left wing-back the teenager defended and attacked with such precocious poise that one could not help thinking Leicester would be just fine if Manchester City or Chelsea were to make an extravagant bid for Chilwell this summer.
Given the context of this game, Thomas’s contribution was sensational. Yet in the narrow prism of this match it was not a surprise when Thomas created the opening goal. Because he and Leicester started so strongly that United, fielding the same side who thrashed Chelsea last weekend, looked powerless.
James Justin blocked a shot by David McGoldrick in the second minute, and after that Rodgers’ side took over.
There was no trace of the nervous side who crumbled at Bournemouth. Here Leicester flexed their muscles and flashed their wit like a team who had never really doubted themselves and were keen to chide others for losing faith. They were first to every breaking ball and passed and moved with a precision and speed that they have not shown since the league’s restart. United had to batten down the hatches.
Thomas engineered the first clear opening for the hosts with a delicate cross from the left in the ninth minute, but Ayoze Pérez’s tentative header from six yards did not do it justice. Three minutes later Leicester’s other young wing-back, the 22-year-old Justin, delivered a clever cross from the right for Jamie Vardy, whose volley was blocked before Dean Henderson saved the striker’s follow-up. Soon the goalkeeper had to spring to his side’s rescue to foil Pérez and Youri Tielemans.
But Henderson never looked like stopping Pérez’s shot when Leicester finally forced the breakthrough just before the half hour. After Pérez fed Thomas wide on the left, the youngster showed vision to play a disguised pass back to the striker at the edge of the area. Pérez drilled a low shot into the net to claim his first goal since January.
Leicester went in at half-time with a lead that reflected their superiority. At Bournemouth that had been the prelude to a frightful unravelling. They did not allow that to happen here. On Sunday Rodgers made a half-time substitution that put the emphasis on protecting the lead; this time his team went all out to extend it.
Vardy missed a chance to do just that just after the resumption, then Harvey Barnes missed two more.
That sort of wastefulness can cost a team no matter how well they are doing in other areas. United tried to punish them in the 63rd minute but Kasper Schmeichel – guilty of two blunders on Sunday – reprieved his team by making a fine save after John Egan’s header from a corner took a tricky deflection.
United did not test Leicester again. Demarai Gray secured victory three minutes after his introduction, accepting a pass from Vardy and crowning a rapid counterattack with a crisp finish. “I’m delighted to walk out having only got beaten 2-0,” said a furious Chris Wilder. “I don’t think there are any sort of positives I can take from this performance. Their heart was bigger than ours.”