Match report: Leicester 0-3 Crystal Palace
Paul Doyle braved the cold at the King Power Stadium to bring you this on-the-whistle match report.
Wilfried Zaha speaks: “The team’s buzzing,” he tells Sky Sports. “We played so well today. We took our chances so I’m just so happy for the fans today.”
Christian Benteke on his goal drought: “I’ve been really patient,” he says. “I’ve been through a hard time but I’m a big believer and I worked hard. It means I won’t give up and I’ll just keep going.”
Full time: Leicester City 0-3 Crystal Palace
Three points for Palace: Roy Hodgson’s team run out worthy and convincing victors, winning their first match away from home in eight months. Christian Benteke ended a 13-match goal drought, before turning provider for Wilfried Zaha. Bakary Sako rounded off a fine Palace performance with a splendid finish just before the final whistle. Leicester can point to the dismissal of Wilfred Ndidi as a turning point, but they were already two down and looked a beaten docket at that stage. They were disappointing today, given their recent good form. Palace go 14th, Leicester stay in eighth.
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GOAL! Leicester 0-3 Crystal Palace (Sako 90+4)
A fine finish from the substitute Bakary Sako, who curls the ball into the top left-hand corner from the ecdge of the penalty area to round off a fine Crystal Palace counter-attack.
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90+2 min: The clock ticks down with not much happening. This win will lift Palace to the dizzy heights of 14th in the table with 17 points, three clear of the relegation zone.
90 min: Crystal Palace’s travelling 1,800 “ole” each pass as their team pass the ball around and play down the clock. They are about to see their team secure its first win away fromk home since 23 April.
88 min: Crystal Palace substitution: Bentek off, Bakary Sako on.
87 min: Leicester substitution a couple of minutes ago: Vardy off, Leonardo Ulloa on. Palace substitution from a few mintes ago: Yohan Cabaye off, Jairo Riedewaldon.
86 min: Danny Simpson is booked for catching Andros Townsend on the follow-through while relieving him of the ball with a sliding tackle as Palace tried to waste time down in the corner.
84 min: Benteke shoots from the edge of the penalty and his goalbound effort is defelcted wide for a corner by the inside of Wes Morgan’s leg.
83 min: Crystal Palace attack on the break and Loftus-Cheek plays Townsend through on goal. From just inside the penalty area, he shoots over the bar.
81 min: Speroni had foiled Mahrez before that astonishing Schmeichel save, but not in quite such dramatic fashion. With Palace under pressure again now, Scott Dann clears their lines with a great header from a Gray cross.
80 min: Chances at either end, the pick of them falling to Christian Beteke. Andros Townsend sent a cross to the far post from the right flank and Christian Benteke leaped high to send a downward header goalwards from near point-blank range. He looks certain to score, but Schmeichel does a star-jump and somehow keeps the ball out with his thigh. An amazing, if slightly fortunate save.
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77 min: Leicester City double substitution: Okazaki and King on, Albrighton and Vicente Iborra off. Okazaki immediately wins a corner, but nothing comes of it.
75 min: Leicester City are preparing to bring on Shinji Okazaki and Andy King. Meanwhile, Opta are reporting that Wilfred Ndidi is the first Premier League player to be sent off on his birthday since Dwight Gayle, who received his birthday marching orders while playing for Crystal Palace against West Ham on October 17 2015. I think I was at that game.
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71 min: I forgot to mention that Jeff Schlupp got booked for the foul on Mahrez that led to that Leicester free-kick. It appears to have brought the curtain down on an incident-packed period of play that seems to have come to an end. We’re in a bit of a lull at the moment, as 10-man Leicester figure out how best to chase what looks an increasingly lost cause. Mind you, if they can pull one back, it’s so long since Palace won away from home that the jitters are bound to set in.
69 min: Demarai Gray tries to curl the ball into the top right-hand corner, but can’t keep it down. Wide.
68 min: Jeff Schlupp gets booked for a foul on Riyad Mahrez just outside the Palace penalty area. Mahrez and Gray stand over the ball in a great scoring position, right inside the D ...
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66 min: A free-kick for Palace, wide on the left. Yohan Cabaye sends in the cross and Vincent Iborra heads clear.
64 min: A lovely piece of skill by Wilf Zaha and he tees up Christian Benteke in the Leicester City penalty area. Marc Albrighton dives in and upends Benteke as he shapes to shoot. Martin Atkinson decides it’s no penalty and it’s a baffling decision. Albrighton got lots of Benteke and ne’er a sniff of the ball.
RED CARD! Wilfred Ndidi is sent off ...
He takes a dive in the Crystal Palace penalty area and gets his second yellow card. Did he dive? Yes Ndidi!!!
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60 min: They appear to get one, with Vincent Iborra heading home from a Riyad Mahrez free-kick wide on the right, but Martin Atkinson chalks it off. He spotted Iborra shoving James Tomkins in the back as the ball came in.
59 min: Play gets increasingly niggly as the latest passage is punctuated by a Simpson foul on Benteke. Palace won’t mind this at all, while the home crowd are getting increasingly impatient. It’s a cold day and they want a Leicester City goal to warm the collective cockles.
56 min: Harry Maguire gets booked for a meaty two-footed challenge on James Tomkins, who takes a while to get back top his feet.
55 min: At the far end of the pitch, Wilf Zaha sends in a cross from the left that misses Christian Benteke’s head by inches.
54 min: Unperturbed, Ndidi unleashes a cross-shot from a narrow angle that that flashes not too far wide of the far upright.
52 min: It’s Wilfired Ndidi’s 21st birthday today and fittingly, he gets a card from Martin Atkinson. It’s yellow and rectangular and is brandished after the birthday boy fouls Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
51 min: Christian Benteke is booked for a late challenge on Vicente Iborra that will earn him a one-match ban just as he’s rediscovered his scoring touch.
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50 min: Great save from Speroni, who gets down quickly to steer a low, diagonal Mahrez drive wide of the upright after the Leicester midfielder had made room for a shot.
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48 min: Benteke pounds the turf in disgust after failing to properly connect with an Andros Townsend cross to score with a diving header. He makes contact with the ball, but it’s not clean enough to steer it goalwards. It was a good Palace move on the counter-attack, after McArthur had won possession with a meaty tackle inside his own half.
46 min: Palace go on the attack immediately, but a promising looking move looks is broken up by Marc Albrighton on the edge of the Leicester penalty area. Leicester go forward, but James McArthur sticks a boot in to bring their sortie to an end.
Second half: Leicester City 0-2 Crystal Palace
46 min: Play resumes with no changes in personnel on either side.
Palace hadn’t scored a goal away from home in the Premier League all season and now they’ve scored 2 against Leicester. Merry Christmas.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) December 16, 2017
Half-time: Leicester City 0-2 Crystal Palace
Well, who saw that coming? Having failed to score away from home the Premier League since 23 April, Crystal Palace have put two past Leicester City and already look home and hosed in this game. Christian Benteke got the first, ending a goal drought of near enough to 1,000 minutes of football with a goal, before teeing up Wilfried Zaha for Palace’s second.
41 min: Leicester City were rather hoisted by their own petard there, getting left badly exposed at the back as Palace savaged them on the counter-attack. Benteke got the ball, drove at the defence and drew Morgan and Maguire towards him before squaring it for Zaha. He jinked right to take out Chilwell and smashed it past Kasper Schmeichel from about 12 or 14 yards.
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GOAL! Leicester City 0-2 Crystal Palace (Zaha 40)
Zaha makes it 2-0 to Palace, firing past Schmeichel after being teed up by Christian Benteke.
38 min: Palace enjoy a spell of possession that takes them from deep inside Leicester territory, back to the edge of their own penalty area and forward again. If nothing else, it’ll help them run down the clock.
35 min: Wilf Zaha gets forward down the right flank, cuts inside and unleashes a shot with three Leicester players around him. In the Leicester goal, Schmeichel saves comfortably.
34 min: Poor defending from Palace, who gift possession to Demarai Gray just outside their own penalty area. He advances and drills a low ball across the edge of the Palace six-yard box, where Vardy is waiting. The pass is a little behind Vardy, who is forced to improvise and attempt to side-foot home with what was originally his standing foot. He makes contact, but not enough to trouble Julian Speroni.
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32 min: Palace fail to clear Albrighton’s corner convincingly and it drops for Vardy at the far post. He heads it back towards Harry Maguire near the penalty spot, but it doesn’t drop kindly for the centre-half and he’s unable to get a shot away.
30 min: Leicester win a free-kick between the left edge of the Palace penalty area and the touchline. Albrighton sends the ball towards the near post and Benteke heads it out for a corner.
29 min: More good work from Townsend, who beats Ben Chilwell down the right flank and sends another cross towards Benteke. Kasper Schmeichel leaps high to grab the ball off his head.
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27 min: Palace get forward again, with Zaha and Loftus-Cheek combining well down the centre again. The latter tries a shot, which is blocked.
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25 min: Martin Kelly it was who blocked that Simpson through-ball towards Vardy. Palace’s players appealed for a penalty, claiming it was a hand-ball. I don’t know whether it was or not, but referee Martin Atkinson waved play on and his is the only opinion that matters.
23 min: Danny Simpson comes this close to sending Jamie Vardy through on goal with a deftly weighted pass through the centre that’s cut out by a defender.
22 min: Benteke goes close to bagging his second, his entire life flashing before his eyes as he leaps to send a thumping header flashing inches past the upright of his own team’s goal as he attempted to defend a free-kick from Marc Albrighton.
20 min: Christian Benteke scores his first goal of the season and it’s a fairly straightforward one. After great work down the right touchline, Andros Townsend sent in a cross. Benteke got between Wes Morgan and Harry Maguire and was unmarked as he headed home from five or six yards out, if that. By way of celebration, he stuck his fingers in his ears, - a message to his critics, perhaps?
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GOAL! Leicester City 0-1 Crystal Palace (Benteke 19)
No, really. Christian Benteke has scored to end a 13-game barren spell.
16 min: Leicester central midfielder Vicente Iborra attempts to steer a volley goalwards from the edge of the Palace penalty area. The less said about that, the better.
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13 min: Should Palace score today, it will be their first Premier League goal on the road since April 23rd, when they beat Liverpool at Anfield. That’s an astonishing drought.
11 min: CHANCE! Palace go close again, with Kasper Schmeichel getting down well to save from Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who combined well with Zaha through the centre before finding himself through on goal about 15 yards out. Schmeichel parries in the direction of Zaha, but his follow-up is blocked by a defender. Loftus-Cheek should have done better there.
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10 min: Marc Albrighton sends in the ball from the corner flag and Harry Maguire gets his head to it. It’s a mite too high for him and he’s unable to steer his header goalwards. Wide.
9 min: A poor header by James Tomkins allows Jamie Vardy in behind the Palace defence. tomkins recovers sufficiently to concede a corner before Vardy wreak his usual havoc.
9 min: A decent game so far, with Palace perhaps having the better of it.
7 min: CHANCE! Great play from Jeff Schlupp who drives forward down the inside left and drills in a cross. At the near post, Christian Benteke is unable to get the touch on the the ball from two yards out and it rolls wide of the far upright. You can’t help but feel an in-form Benteke would have rearranged his feet in time to bury that.
6 min: Zaha gets on the ball on the left side of the Leicester penalty area. He jinks this way and that with two defenders on him, but can’t pick out a man with his low cross.
5 min: Yohan Cabaye tries to pick out Wilf Zaha with a pass to the left touchline, but completely overhits his pass and sends the ball into the stand. He gets a sarcastic round of applause for his troubles and it’s no more than he deserves.
2 min: Kasper Schmeichel goes down after a collision with Christian Benteke as the goalkeeper charged from his box to contest a bouncing ball. He quickly returns to his feet and play resumes. It was a 50-50 ball.
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2 min: An early goal-kick for Palace, as Jamie Vardy fails to keep the ball in play.
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Leicester City v Crystal Palace is go ...
1 min: Leicester kick off, their players in blue shirts, shorts and socks. The players of Palace wear white shirts, shorts and socks. Prediction time: a home win for me, Clive.
Not long now ...
The teams are in the tunnel, where Leicester skipper Wes Morgan is having a great chat with Palace goalkeeper Julian Speroni as they wait to be led out on to the pitch by referee Martin Atkinson. Out they go, with Christian Benteke looking pensive as he attempts to break his duck for the season.
More on the telethon ...
I’ve had a peek down the Just Taking end of the office and star Guardian writers Simon Hattenstone, Marina Hyde and Kira Cochrane are among those currently wearing headsets, tip-tapping away on their keyboards and processing donations for two very worthy causes. If you’d like to ring them up and accuse them of “lazy journalism”, you’ll never have a better chance. But it’ll cost you ...
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While you're waiting ...
The Guardian Christmas telethon is today and some of our finest – our editor Kath Viner, columnists Marina Hyde, Hugh Muir and Polly Toynbee etc and so on – are currently manning the phones taking donations for charities working to tackle youth homelessness and asylum seeker destitution.
If you’ve a few quid to spare and would like to tell our editor in chief how great you think I am, we’d be ever so grateful. Call 0203 353 4368 now. Give a little, it would help an awful lot.
Okazaki dropped despite midweek brace ...
Leicester City manager Claude Puel comes over a bit Ebeneezer Scrooge, opting to leave Shinji Okazaki on the bench despite the Japanese striker scoring his first ever Premier League double against Southampton during the week. Robert Huth and Matty James remain sidelined through injury, but are believed to be close to a return.
For Palace, Luka Milivojevic sits out this one on the naughty step, with Wednesday’s late match-winner James McArthur picked to replace him ahead of Jason Puncheon. Mamadou Sakho (calf), Joel Ward (groin) and Timothy Fosu-Mensah (hamstring) are all injured. Martin Kelly comes in at full-back and James Tomkins continues deputising for Sakho in central defence.
Leicester City v Crystal Palace line-ups
Leicester: Schmeichel, Simpson, Morgan, Maguire, Chilwell, Mahrez, Ndidi, Iborra, Albrighton, Gray, Vardy.
Subs: Iheanacho, King, Hamer, Dragovic, Okazaki, Ulloa, Fuchs.
Crystal Palace: Speroni, Kelly, Tomkins, Dann, Schlupp, Townsend, Cabaye, McArthur, Loftus-Cheek, Zaha, Benteke.
Subs: Van Aanholt, Hennessey, Lee, Souare, Sako, Riedewald, Wan Bissaka.
Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire)
The Foxes take on the Eagles ...
In real life, you’d have to fancy the Eagles to prevail in such a death-match, but given the current run of form being enjoyed by Claude Puel’s Foxes it’s no surprise they’re odds-on favourites to prevail over Crystal Palace. Laboured sub-Attenborough introductions aside, Palace have proved obdurate opposition under Roy Hodgson and are unbeaten in six, their last-gasp victory against Watford on Tuesday a prime example of their new found resilience. They remain in the bottom three, but seem to have enough about them to surge clear before too long. Kick off is at 12.30pm (GMT), but stay tuned for team news and build-up ahead of referee Martin Atkinson’s first whistle.
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