Leicester City came into this lucrative fixture to host the reigning Premier League Champions, Liverpool FC. The foxes were a position above the Reds in the league table. However, it’s always a real tough test to dance toe to toe with the champions.
Prior to this game, Brendan Rodgers had a piece of the unfortunate news that James Justin was compromised for the better part of this season due to an ACL injury which he picked up in their last FA Cup outing against Brighton & Hove Albion. This was a major blow. The King Power club was expected to make some changes to their formation without such an integral member of the squad, who has played every game for the foxes this season.
Jürgen Klopp had his own centre-back issues this season thus he decided to start Ozan Kabak and Ben Davies but the latter suffered a knock earlier during an immediate training session before the game so Henderson resumed that role for this fixture, yet again. Klopp’s men were under heavy scrutiny for not producing results this season as per their own standards. They lost back to back league games against Brighton and Manchester City before coming into this one with uninspiring performances.
The game started with the ever familiar Gegenpressing from the Liverpool side. Surely Klopp demanded high intensity from the front line to put pressure on the Leicester backline to make them commit silly overturns. Dan Amartey surprisingly started as the right-back and Ricardo Pereira was in charge of being the left-back for the LCFC defence.
Liverpool constantly had plenty of proximate chances which saw the foxes’ defence struggle. Amartey was surely looking pale having the task of containing the unstoppable Sadio Mané. 17′ min saw James Milner leave the field to be replaced with Thiago Alcântara due to some discomfort.
Mohamed Salah troubled Pereira and had some decent chances to convert in the first half with the East Midlands side being dominated by the visitors. However, Jamie Vardy had blasted a shot past Alison only to hit the crossbar, and then soon after another chance for Vardy was saved by the keeper. It was a miracle that the score remained even at 0-0 after the first half.
Anybody could see that a goal was coming any moment now and it did come unfortunately in the second half for the visitors. Liverpool broke the deadlock at the 67th minute with a brilliant turn from Firmino to provide a present of a chance for Salah and he finishes the ball into the back of the net in sublime fashion. The former Liverpool and current Leicester City’s Rodgers made an attacking substitution by introducing Ayoze Pérez into the game for Marc Albrighton.
Who would have thought in the 76th minute that a dream comeback for the ages was just about to begin? Leicester were harshly done by with a foul on Harvey Barnes on the line at the edge of the box, which could have been given as a penalty, but wasn’t by the VAR. James Maddison unfolded the drama when he was able to find the net with his free-kick but immediately it was sent back to the VAR for possible intervention from Amartey who was suspected to be offside. However, the decision went in Leicester’s favor and Amartey was shown to be onside.
After finding the precious equalizer within three minutes an aerial ball misjudgment caused the debutant and Alisson to collide leaving the ball to drop precisely to Vardy and he doesn’t miss those chances. It was 2-1 to Leicester with a blink of an eye. Vardy troubled Alisson again after a minute but this time the Brazillian was able to make a double save to deny the foxes.
It didn’t matter though as in the 85th minute Ndidi releases Harvey Barnes with a lofted through ball that exploits Liverpool’s gap in the disoriented defensive pocket and Barnes makes a sprint from the left flank and just like that with a magnificent strike from the winger the foxes reach dreamland with the scoreline reading a 3-1 lead. That surely killed off the game for the champions and Leicester cruised away with a precious result to end the game and comfortably move in the second place in the Premier league table today.
It would be logical to think that because of the high pressing that Klopp started with the intention to win the ball, score early, and keep most of the possession evidently hurt the reds in the second half. Surely Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers was aware that the Gegenpress style of football took away a lot of stamina off the Liverpool players and it meant around sometime in the second half the visiting side will run out of stamina. It was all about one opportunity to open up the game and after canceling out, it looked like the visiting players were shaken up, they lost their confidence and simply committed silly mistakes that presented Rodger’s predatory foxes to land a fatal upset in the contest.
This result will be a major confidence booster for the whole squad whose morale was certainly downtrodden with the astonishing amount of Leicester City injuries this season. The players showed a lot of courage and determination to not switch off and continue searching for the precious equalizer. After all, “Fortune favors the bold“.