Leicester March On
Rather than talk about another torrid display of football that boils my blood, I think I'll say one positive word about Liverpool and move swiftly on: Roberto Firmino is very rapidly turning into a top quality Premier League player. That's six goals and five assists for him now in less than twice that many starts as the lone striker, not a bad effort for a supposed flop. Anyway, moving swiftly on from that travesty to talk about Leicester City, who turned over Manchester City in their own back garden. I had a sneaky feeling Leicester might pull something off, but I don't think anyone expected this. The Foxes absolutely tore City apart at times. A couple of set piece goals for Robert Huth showed City's aerial frailties, but on the ground, it was Leicester playing all of the sublime football.
City, despite having 70% of the ball, played tactically right into Leicester's hands. Leicester controlled the tempo of the game by breaking with energy and intensity every time a City attack inevitably broke down. Vardy and Okazaki were running Demichellis and Otamendi ragged and from the minute that Riad Mahrez beat two players before rifling home past Joe Hart, it was game over. A disgraced Yaya Toure was hauled off less than five minutes later, and with Pep Guardiola coming in the summer, that may well be the moment that we look back on as the moment that Toure's City career went up in smoke. City were lethargic, listless, whilst Leicester were all power and energy. Vardy could have scored at least once or twice, more chances went begging and this could easily have been five or six before Sergio Aguero scored a late consolation for the home side. Demichellis, Toure and Otamendi are easy to criticize (Demichellis in my opinion shouldn't be allowed to put on a City shirt ever again after this display), but none of this City team showered themselves in glory. Even goalscorer Aguero had a poor game. But Leicester were utterly magnificent. They wanted it more, they had the better tactics, the higher intensity and played the better football. What a display.
As for where this leaves the title race. Well, Arsenal and Spurs both did what they needed to do in tough circumstances and picked up three points, away at Bournemouth and at home to Watford respectively, piling the misery on City, who sit 4th, six points behind Leicester and a point behind both North London clubs. In my opinion, the full force of the impact that this will have on the race won't be fully decided until next weekend, when Leicester play Arsenal and Spurs play City, but one thing is certain: Leicester have firmly established themselves as more than just challengers, but as if not favourites, then at the least, very serious contenders. A win next weekend would send them at least five points clear of Spurs, at least six clear of City and eight clear of Arsenal. From there, they look almost uncatchable. They have a nicer fixture list after this, with City and Arsenal both needing to play Spurs, they have less football to worry about, with all three other clubs still fighting on three fronts, compared to Leicester's one and, perhaps most importantly: they have momentum and they play with no fear. Anything is possible.
All Change At The Bottom
Newcastle are out of the bottom three. This is the big story from the bottom of the league, as they managed to see off a West Brom side that weren't really up for it. It was Mitrovic who scored the goal, but this was a dominant display from Newcastle, who never really looked like conceding. Newcastle had over two-thirds of the ball, nearly three times as many shots, hit the target seven times when WBA failed to do it once and, crucially, scored the game's only goal.
And this win proved to be a huge one for them, as an increasingly awful Norwich side fell to their fifth defeat in a row, going down 2-0 to the worst side in the league, Aston Villa. At least they didn't concede three this time, but even so, it's another horror show for Norwich. They've been worse than Newcastle for a while now and based on Sunderland's recent displays, they should really be looking down rather than up, as the Black Cats are only three points behind them now after...eugh.
Also, Crystal Palace managed to at least stop the rot slightly by both scoring and picking up a point against a Swansea side that are now four games unbeaten under Guidolin and inching closer to safety every week, now four points clear of the drop zone. For my money, the current bottom three are probably going down, but never underestimate Big Sam, or Newcastle's ability to spontaneously implode.
Buttler's Big Bash
So as predicted, England ended up rather comfortably chasing down the 263 that South Africa set them to make it 2-0 in their ODI series, with five wickets and almost four overs to spare. England got off to a strong start, 111-1 at the halfway mark in their innings, before losing quick wickets: Root, Morgan and Stokes all falling to reduce England to 176-4, still needing 87 runs from thirteen and a half overs. Then Jos Buttler came in and the rest is history. But before we get to Buttler, a word has to be said for Alex Hales, because it was really he who won this game for England, although granted Buttler made the job look a little more comfortable than it could have been. Hales batted superbly throughout, anchored the innings and kept England ticking over throughout, before eventually falling for the dreaded 99 off 124 balls, with less than ten overs to go and England still 61 runs short.
Of course, requiring just over a run a ball in the back ten overs is very doable, but Jos Buttler made it look very, very easy indeed, butchering Abbott for three straight fours and then Imran Tahir for three straight sixes as he plundered 48* from just 28 balls and led England to an easy win. Two ODIs in and two comprehensive displays from England, even if the scorecards for the respective games don't quite tell the story of how easy it has been for them, or how professional their displays were.
I'll talk rugby tomorrow, give myself something to talk about and round up the three matches, all of which have been absolutely terrific games of rugby, with Wales v Ireland currently finely poised at 13-13 with 20 minutes left. No I'm not even going to try and guess how that's heading.
The Hard and Fast Section
- Barcelona: 10 wins and 28 games unbeaten. In a row.
- Valencia are losing again. Poor Gary Neville.
- Leamington Update: Rains ruins game again.
- Cobblers are still top of League 2. Booyah.
- Harlequins handed Saints victory. In embarrassing style.
- Everton smashed Stoke to move ahead of us. Eugh.
- I support the 77th minute walkout. Just not our keeper's.
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