Right then, I’m off. Here’s the match report again, and the latest league table. Bye!
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man City | 33 | 45 | 77 |
| 2 | Man Utd | 32 | 29 | 66 |
| 3 | Leicester | 32 | 21 | 59 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 32 | 19 | 55 |
| 5 | West Ham | 32 | 11 | 55 |
| 6 | Tottenham Hotspur | 33 | 18 | 53 |
| 7 | Liverpool | 32 | 16 | 53 |
| 8 | Everton | 31 | 3 | 49 |
| 9 | Arsenal | 32 | 8 | 46 |
| 10 | Leeds | 32 | 0 | 46 |
| 11 | Aston Villa | 31 | 9 | 44 |
| 12 | Wolverhampton | 32 | -9 | 41 |
| 13 | Crystal Palace | 31 | -19 | 38 |
| 14 | Southampton | 32 | -18 | 36 |
| 15 | Newcastle | 32 | -18 | 35 |
| 16 | Brighton | 32 | -5 | 34 |
| 17 | Burnley | 32 | -19 | 33 |
| 18 | Fulham | 33 | -18 | 27 |
| 19 | West Brom | 32 | -34 | 24 |
| 20 | Sheff Utd | 32 | -39 | 14 |
Paul Doyle has filed his match report from the King Power Stadium:
With panache and no mercy Leicester hardened their top-four credentials and plunged West Brom deeper into the bottom three. This was a powerful way to discredit suggestions that Brendan Rodgers’ team could fade again as the season reaches its finale. They raced into the lead in the first half thanks to goals by Jamie Vardy, Jonny Evans and Kelechi Iheanacho and never looked like being caught by Sam Allardyce’s side, for whom relegation looms ever larger.
West Brom are nine points below 17th-placed Burnley with six matches remaining and an awful goal difference, which Leicester enjoyed making worse. Rodgers’ team are four points above fifth place and although that is not a plump cushion, they played here with an insouciant menace.
Much more here:
Brendan Rodgers is perhaps a bit less pleased than you might expect:
A win against anyone in the Premier League is a big win. In the first half out intensity was very good. I wasn’t so happy with our passing, too many mistakes, giving the ball away. So I wasn’t happy at half-time even though we were 3-0 up. Second half we controlled the game a little bit more. Overall it was a really good win for us.
Kelechi’s showing his qualities, he still has to improve, gives the ball away too much. I thought all the goals were very good. The combination play to get in for the first, our other goal the build-up was really good.
Leicester played nearly four times as many accurate passes as West Brom. Four! The only Leicester players who didn’t play more passes than West Brom’s most prolific passer, Sam Johnstone, were Kasper Schmeichel, Jamie Vardy, and the substitutes. Wesley Fofana, who went off in the 61st minute, played almost exactly twice as many passes as the most prolific passer among West Brom’s outfield players. Iheanacho had nearly three times as many shots as West Brom, who managed just one on target. The upshot of whatever Allardyce said to his players at half-time was just one shot in the entire second half, and that was off target (though there was one other, from Darnell Furlong, which was bravely blocked by one of his own teammates and thus doesn’t count).
Final score: Leicester 3-0 West Bromwich Albion
90+3 mins: It’s all over. Leicester look a little more secure in the top four, West Brom a little less secure in the top flight.
90+1 mins: There will be two minutes of stoppage time, and they start with Perez running completely clear down the right, but in the middle Iheanacho unaccountably stops when he needed only to keep jogging forwards to be presented with a tap-in.
89 mins: The match is drifting towards a conclusion, the only question being whether Leicester are going to bother scoring another goal.
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86 mins: Iheanacho runs towards the penalty area before shooting straight into a defender, when really he should have passed to the completely free Thomas on the left.
85 mins: Praet comes on, replacing Vardy.
84 mins: Chance for West Brom! The away side send a corner from the left into the six-yard box, where Ajayi completely misses his header and the ball hits the back of his shoulder and goes wide.
81 mins: Iheanacho’s shot is on target, but with little power, and it’s hit into Johnstone’s half of the goal, and the West Brom keeper pushes it away.
79 mins: Iheanacho passes to Perez, who goes down under Bartley’s challenge. It looks like a hopeless dive to me on first viewing, but Bartley did briefly throw an arm into Perez’s path so there was some contact. Bartley is booked, and Leicester have a great shooting chance, a couple of yards outside the penalty area.
78 mins: Leicester break from a West Brom long throw, but Vardy’s square ball is behind Iheanacho.
76 mins: This has been a puzzling performance from West Brom. There has just been a complete lack of intensity about them. They look sporadically decent in possession, but there is no pace to their play, and they’re barely even trying to threaten the Leicester goal.
73 mins: Leicester bring Perez on for Maddison.
71 mins: Vardy shoots from 55 yards! Evans clears the corner, Phillips leaves it to go out of play but it never does, and Vardy takes the loose ball and runs into West Brom’s half. He could have just kept going, because there was nobody between him and the penalty area, but with Johnstone way off his line he decides to just have a go, but it’s not a very good one.
70 mins: West Brom win a corner, which Ndidi heads clear. Johnstone has apparently played six more passes than any other West Brom player so far this evening.
67 mins: Robson-Kanu beats two or three Leicester players in midfield, but then runs straight into a fourth.
66 mins: Yokuslu goes down and stays down, looking in great agony. I don’t know what the physio does to him, but within about 45 seconds of him coming on Yokuslu completely recovers.
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64 mins: VAR wants a closer look at an Albrighton tackle on Townsend, but decides it wasn’t so bad.
62 mins: West Brom bring Robson-Kanu on for Diagne.
61 mins: Albrighton replaces Fofana. “Not nearly as bad as a own goal, but an own foul is pretty poor on Tielemans’ part,” notes Peter Oh.
60 mins: West Brom do some decent defending, Bartley bravely getting in the way of a vicious shot. Sadly it was Furlong’s shot, and Barley was standing in front of Leicester’s goal at the time.
60 mins: Albrighton is about to come on for Leicester. There’s a bit of an intensity vacuum in this match since half-time, with Leicester having the game under control, and West Brom being useless.
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56 mins: Yokuslu tries to tackle someone again. He shouldn’t have bothered: Castagne got the ball first, and he got a yellow card.
53 mins: Chance! Maddison plays a one-two with Iheanacho, squares back to the Leicester striker, and O’Shea blocks the shot.
51 mins: The difference between the two sides’ attitudes can be summed up in the fact that when the ball just rolled loose in midfield Tielemans literally fouled Ndidi in his desperation to reach it first.
49 mins: “It’s baffling, the lack of intensity out there from West Brom,” says Chris Sutton on commentary. They haven’t conceded yet this half, but they’re not looking much more competitive.
46 mins: The second half has begun, and there has been one halftimely change: West Brom have taken Robinson off, and brought Ajayi on.
West Brom’s players are sent out early for the second half, and for at least a minute or two they are the best team on the pitch. Then Leicester come out to join them.
Iheanacho’s missed one-on-one; Castagne hitting the post; Iheanacho blazing over the bar from eight yards. West Brom are extraordinarily lucky to be only three goals down at the break, but surely can’t be that bat in the second half.
Selected half-time stats:
Possession: 73-27
Shots: 12-2
Shots on target: 6-1
Passes completed: 338-90
Half time: Leicester 3-0 West Bromwich Albion
45+3 mins: That’s half time. Leicester have scored three and could have had five; West Brom’s players are in for a hell of a rollicking.
45+2 mins: Schmeichel has to do a thing! Fofana give the ball away, West Brom attack and Phillips has a shot from the edge of the D that goes straight to the Leicester keeper.
45+1 mins: A West Brom player - Yokuslu, I think - has just tackled someone, Maddison in this case. I genuinely can’t remember the last time it happened.
42 mins: Terrible, terrible miss! Leicester’s attack is really very good: Evans hits an excellent long pass to Thomas on the left, who touches back to Maddison. He lifts the ball deep into the area, and Castagne nods back across where it comes off Tielemans and drops to Iheanacho, who has the entire goal to aim at from eight yards and clears the bar by a distance!
39 mins: West Brom have been almost bizarrely appalling tonight, though I suppose there’s still time for a comeback.
GOAL! Leicester 3-0 West Brom (Iheanacho, 36 mins)
It’s three! Vardy runs down the right, cuts inside O’Shea, draws Bartley and squares to Iheanacho, who has enough space to take a touch, force Townsend to commit with a little dummy, and then stroke into the net.
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35 mins: Now West Brom hit the bar. It’s a corner from the right, which Pereira curls over Schmeichel, onto the bar and out of play.
33 mins: Save! Maddison cuts onto his left foot and from 22 yards or so sends a shot straight at Johnstone.
30 mins: Castagne lifts the ball into the area, and Vardy lets it drop over his right shoulder before mishitting a volley which bobbles wide, and it turns out he was marginally offside anyway.
28 mins: Leicester hit the post! West Brom are all over the place at the moment, unrecognisable from the side that put 10-man Chelsea to the sword in their last away game. Castagne has the freedom of the entire right half of the field and is released by a simple pass, advances to the edge of the area and sends a low shot into the meat of the woodwork!
GOAL! Leicester 2-0 West Brom (Evans, 26 mins)
And another! Leicester win a corner on the right, and play it low to Vardy, whose first-time shot deflects wide. The next corner is sent to the near post, where it misses two blue shirts, hits the unsighted and entirely unaware Phillips and loops to the far post, where Evans heads in!
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GOAL! Leicester 1-0 West Brom (Vardy, 23 mins)
Lovely goal from Leicester! Tieleman’s through-ball to Castagne was superb, he squares to Vardy, and from the edge of the area he sends Johnstone the wrong way before side-footing into the now-unguarded net!
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19 mins: The ball is played over the defence to Iheanacho, whose first touch is poor and takes him wide on the left, and whose remaining touches are all excellent as he nutmegs Furlong and ghosts past O’Shea, before Johnstone turns his low centre behind for a corner.
17 mins: Leicester continue their search for a decent final ball, this time Maddison floating one into the box and over Vardy, which Johnstone collects.
15 mins: Leicester keep the ball for a while before Vardy invites Castagne to have a run down the right but he loses his race to the ball with Townsend.
11 mins: Leicester appear to have worked out that they are much less likely to concede if they don’t let West Brom have the ball.
9 mins: Vardy sets up Maddison for a shot, but the pass forces him a bit wide and his left-foot shot is blocked and, worse, rebounds back into him before going off the pitch.
8 mins: Soyuncu accidentally slides some studs down Maitland-Niles’ ankle, and the West Brom midfielder needs a bit of time to decide if he’s actually injured or just a bit sore.
6 mins: This has been an extremely promising start. More like this please.
4 mins: Chance for West Brom! A cross from the right is headed meekly to Pereira, who slides the ball first-time to Diagne, just outside the six-yard box, but the forward swings his foot and completely missed the ball!
3 mins: Terrible miss from in-form Iheanacho! The Leicester forward robs a defender just inside the West Brom half and runs clear on goal, but he takes a bad touch which gives Johnstone a chance to narrow the angles, so he tries to take it round the keeper and fails!
1 min: Peeeeep! West Brom, in their yellow and red away kit, get the game started.
The teams are on their way out. In other news, Wilfred Ndidi is really good at leapfrog.
Brendan Rodgers does too. He doesn’t say anything very interesting, though. Tonight’s it’s business as usual,” he says. “Every game is a big game, and tonight’s another big game for us.” And on the Super League: “Thankfully the supporters’ voices have been heard. It was alarming, I think that was the best way to describe it. We’re a nation where the supporters’ voices are everything, and hopefully it’ll go away.
Sam Allardyce has a chat:
It’s a difficult ask, obviously. They’re on a high, qualifying for the FA Cup final. As ever, we’ve got to really focus on what we’ve achieved in the last two games and try to hit that level of performance again and be very clinical when a chance arrives. If we can play as well as we know we can, then I think we’ve got a chance.
And on the Super League business:
It’s not gone. We haven’t won yet. These guys have been plotting for many years. I’ve been speaking to lots of owners that I’ve managed, and they’ve all been well aware about what’s happening, in terms of those big boys trying to get more of the pot, more of the money. Now they’ve tried this way, they’ll try another way I’m sure. Hopefully they’ll put the regulations together in the right way so it can’t happen again.
Some pre-match reading, in the shape of a Guardian editorial on that Super League thing.
Kasper Schmeichel is looking chirpy.
The teams!
Two changes for Leicester, who bring Luke Thomas and James Maddison in, and leave Ricardo Pereira and Ayoze Perez out. West Brom are unchanged again.
Leicester: Schmeichel, Fofana, Evans, Soyuncu, Castagne, Ndidi, Tielemans, Thomas, Maddison, Iheanacho, Vardy. Subs: Albrighton, Ward, Perez, Amartey, Under, Choudhury, Ricardo Pereira, Mendy, Praet.
West Brom: Johnstone, Furlong, O’Shea, Bartley, Townsend, Phillips, Yokuslu, Maitland-Niles, Robinson, Matheus Pereira, Diagne. Subs: Robson-Kanu, Ajayi, Livermore, Diangana, Gallagher, Sawyers, Peltier, Button, Ahearne-Grant.
Referee: Andrew Madley.
Confirming our #LeiWba XI 📋
— Leicester City (@LCFC) April 22, 2021
Brought to you by @eToro 🤝
📋 We’re unchanged for tonight’s clash at the King Power Stadium.@MonsterEnergy | #LEIWBA
— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) April 22, 2021
Hello world!
West Brom have scored eight goals in their last two games, which is as many as they scored in their first 11. It is an almost Iheanacho-esque level of goalscoring, and suggests the decent Premier League side that has been trying to hatch at the Hawthorns all season has finally emerged, just in time to be relegated.
With 21 points to play for and a gap of only nine between them and 17th-placed Burnley that fate is far from certain, but they must continue to take their chances. Leicester are the last current top-four side that they will face this season, but 12th-placed Wolves are the lowest team they are scheduled to face. This is a bit daunting, but in many ways mid-table sides are precisely the best kind to be playing at this stage in the season, being the most likely to have started daydreaming about imminent holidays, and they have plenty of those to come.
Leicester certainly should have no commitment issues, sitting as they do just one point ahead of fifth-placed West Ham and three away from Liverpool in seventh (with a game in hand on both), with a Champions League place to protect and a daunting run of Manchester United (a), Chelsea (a) and Spurs (h) to close the campaign. So, in short, this might be a good ’un, between two times going for victory. Welcome!
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