Soccer / leicester vs liverpool

Although Leicester in recent years have pitted their tents against the big boys in the league, their form this season has let them down and it was a surprise when they defeated Liverpool 1-0 on Monday night courtesy of an Ademola Lookman strike. The England youth international scored the only goal of the encounter in the 56th minute to dent Liverpool's title hopes and increase the distance between them and Manchester City. With injuries rocking both teams and the fixture pile up, both managers still had the luxury of naming relatively strong sides. Liverpool were, however, without Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho and Andy Robertson through suspension and Leicester City without Johnny Evans and Caglar Soyuncu. Tragedy struck as early as the 14th minute when Wilfred Ndidi brought down Mohammed Salah in the Leicester penalty area. Having only failed to be directly involved in a league goal in their last game against Tottenham, Salah unusually saw his spot kick saved by Kasper Schmeichel and his follow up with the rebound came off the crossbar. The penalty save looked to have roared the home fans behind their team as they kept chanting and heating the tempo. This spurred their team on as Schmeichel again did well to deny Jordan Henderson in what looked like it was destined for the back fo the net. After the interval, it was unbelievable that Liverpool had not gone ahead in the 55th minute when Diogo Jota played Sadio Mane through on goal and the Senegalese uncharacteristically flashed his effort agonizingly over the bar. Brendan Rodgers then made a double substitution that would prove to be vital in deciding the game moments later as he brought on Ademola Lookman for Hamzah Choudhury and Youri Tielemans for Kelechi Iheanacho. Barely three minutes after coming on, Ademola hit a strike that would decide the game. A swift counterattack from the hosts was well orchestrated by Lookman, who exchanged the ball well with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. Lookman took the return ball in his strides and fired beyond Alisson Becker from a tight angle. Klopp threw in more attacking options as they looked to save their face, but Leicester, backed by their fans kept their ground to hold on for the famous victory. Concluding Thoughts It is no gainsaying that it was a disappointing outing for Liverpool as their profligacy cost them the three points on the night. It was a rare sight for Mohammed Salah to miss a penalty after scoring his previous 15, but I must confess that it was a poorly taken kick. The height and power behind the ball was too comfortable for a goalkeeper. I'm guess he had adjudged that Schmeichel would dive the other way, because had that happened, it would have been a wonderful penalty. It was a loss that dents their hopes of unseating Manchester City as they failed to take the opportunity to close the six-point gap between them and City. Should City win against Brentford, the lead would be increased to nine, which could mean City run away with the title. For Leicester City, it was more of a revenge mission having been eliminated from the Carabao Cup on penalties by the same side a few days back. What makes it more interesting for a win was the makeshift central defenders they had to play in Daniel Amartey and Wilfred Ndidi, both featuring the hear of defence and aside from the tackle that led to the penalty, I think they both had good games. Make what you may of the victory , but Leicester's inconsistency this season is one that'd not make a person rejoice beyond this victory as you never know which of their performances will be up next.