Forget the Champions League, the Championship should be preying on Claudio Ranieri’s mind as Jamie Vardy’s goal drought endures and his Leicester City side contemplate a relegation skirmish.
“We miss everything from last season, including luck,” lamented Ranieri after seeing his side deservedly beaten by a renascent Sunderland who are now only two points behind them. “In football there are good and bad moments and now we must stick together.”
Not that Leicester’s manager has entirely abandoned hope for the season. Indeed, he suggested that his team could be safely mid-table and Vardy rampant again once the Champions League knockout stage comes round. “A lot of teams are involved in the relegation battle and we’re one of them,” said Ranieri. “But I still believe in Jamie and sooner or later he will start scoring.”
For the moment the striker who turned Leicester into champions last season is without a goal in 16 club games and struggled to second guess the impressive Lamine Koné and Papy Djilobodji as Sunderland hauled themselves off the bottom courtesy of a third win in four matches.
“Our performance was really good,” said David Moyes. “We’ve a long way to go but it’s a start. We’re playing better and we’re winning.”
His side opened strongly, forcing Wes Morgan into superb blocks to deny first Victor Anichebe and then Jermain Defoe near-certain goals. Rarely touching the ball, Leicester were battered by wave upon wave of home attacks. Even when they finally managed a break of their own and Vardy briefly menaced, Koné intervened with a fine interception.
That manoeuvre featured an increasingly elusive slick combination between the England forward and Riyad Mahrez but, tellingly, Sunderland enjoyed infinitely greater success in getting behind their opponents’ defence.
The power balance shifted slightly as Vardy headed three chances wide and, almost imperceptibly, Ranieri’s team rallied. Yet if the midfield contest was suddenly rather more equal, it still took an excellently-timed tackle from Robert Huth to deny Duncan Watmore as the winger hurtled towards Ron-Robert Zieler’s goal.
Significantly the moment – one of several similarly slapdash cameos – when Daniel Amartey passed straight to an initially startled, then immensely grateful, Patrick van Aanholt, allowing Moyes’s left-back to charge forward, seemed emblematic of Leicester’s wider decline.
Sunderland’s burgeoning recovery was assisted by the second-half introduction of midfielders Jan Kirchhoff and Seb Larsson, both newly fit after lengthy layoffs.
It also helped that Koné, who regressed alarmingly after signing a lucrative new contract, shone in central defence, reminding everyone why Everton were so keen to spend £18m on him during the summer. Helpfully, Djilobodji, Koné’s oft criticised but reassuringly quick partner, also excelled contributing a pivotal, if arguably inadvertent, block to divert Islam Slimani.
With hindsight it seemed a watershed as, within minutes, Larsson had whipped in a corner and Kirchhoff unleashed a glancing header which ricocheted off Huth on its way past a wrong-footed Zieler. Very soon afterwards Leicester looked lucky not to concede a penalty following Danny Simpson’s felling of van Aanholt. If Moyes felt outraged, Ranieri appeared increasingly uneasy and, using all three substitutes, took the once unheard-of step of withdrawing Mahrez.
It proved to no avail as Defoe delighted in scoring his fourth goal in five games. Simpson and friends had no answer to Anichebe’s powerful left-wing advance and allowed the influential, indefatigable forward’s cross to create a chance for Watmore. Although Huth blocked that effort, it fell to Defoe whose unerring shot left Zieler helpless. “Having a striker of Jermain’s class gives us a chance,” said Sunderland’s manager.
Time remained for two of Ranieri’s substitutes to combine to goal-scoring effect, Demarai Gray displaying a glorious change of pace before Shinji Okazaki extended a boot and whipped his cross into the bottom corner.
With the otherwise under-worked Jordan Pickford saving smartly from Morgan in stoppage time it proved too little but Sunderland joy was tempered by the knee injury Watmore sustained falling awkwardly after challenging Christian Fuchs, which resulted in him being carried off with his injured leg braced. “It doesn’t look great for Duncan,” said Moyes. “But if we can keep this up we’ll be OK.”
