Leicester win at Crystal Palace to move to third in the table
Leicester City moved up to third in the Premier League after their 2-0 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday.
Goals from Caglar Soyuncu and Jamie Vardy ensured Brendan Rodgers left London with the spoils, with their hosts looking blunt in front of goal and their home fans.
Roy Hodgson made two changes to the team that drew 2-2 with Arsenal last week, with keeper Vicente Guaita replacing Wayne Hennessey in goal and Jeffrey Schlupp coming in for the injured Andros Townsend, who failed to recover from a muscle problem.
Unsurprisingly, Brendan Rodgers made no changes to the side that battered Southampton 9-0 last week.
Both teams started brightly, with a high tempo and plenty of pressing on the ball. From the off it appeared that the game would be open, with plenty of chances for all those involved, but that proved to only be correct to up to a point.
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Foxes winger Harvey Barnes played a wonderful ball from inside his own half to slip in Jamie Vardy; the inform striker stayed onside but Guita was equal to his low effort.
Although there was plenty of attacking intent on show, with the Palace fullbacks in particular pushing forward, the game actually failed to generate any genuine chances on goal. All the early positivity remained, but without the final piece of quality to break the deadlock.
With the hour mark approaching the game’s first goal came. Jonny Evans’ tame header was pushed over the bar by Guaita, but from the resulting corner, James Maddison found Soyuncu.
The Turkish defender was first to react from a slight deflection and improvised to power a header into the Palace net and get his first goal for his club.
That goal added some extra impetus for the home team, and they enjoyed their best spell of the match immediately after. A deep cross from Joel Ward nearly found Wilfried Zaha, but was put away for a corner. Delivered in by Luka Milivojevic, it fell to Schlupp who struck the ball sweetly but right into Ben Chilwell’s midriff, despite the handball shouts.
As the Eagles kept the ball and pressed for an equaliser there was always the threat that Leicester’s speed possessed on the break.
Rather than tense up, the game returned to the open end-to-end affair that it began as. Palace brought on Max Meyer and Christian Benteke as they sought their goal but it proved unfruitful.
There was even time for Leicester to round things off in style. Youri Tielemans found Jamie Vardy with a lovely pass and deadly forward played a one-two with substitute Demarai Gray before firing home to take all three points back up the M1.
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