Super Eagles’ Wilfred Ndidi showed class as he inspired the Foxes to their first win in three matches in the English Premier League match against West Ham Wednesday night, Bestchoicesports.com.ng can report
Leicester City are back to winning ways in the EPL and they did it on the return of midfielder Wilfred Ndidi after a surgery.
Leicester had suffered two defeats against Southampton and Burnley in the absence of the Nigerian international who has now cut short his expected time of recovery from six to just two weeks.
Two late goals from Ayoze Perez complimented first-half strikes from Harvey Barnes and Ricardo Pereira.
Leicester City got off to a bright start on Wednesday and gained dominance immediately, Maddison dummied the cut-back and it ran to Vardy, who can’t bring it under control, started falling over and speared a shot straight at Randolph.
After just 13 minutes of play, Leicester have had 84% of possession and most of West Ham’s 16% has presumably been the time the ball has spent in the air after goal-kicks.
Leicester’s pressure paid off in the 24th minute.
Pereira bursts into the penalty area and hits a cross-shot that would have gone wide had Barnes not thundered in to smash it home from half a yard. Happily, the six-yard line made it abundantly clear with a simple freeze-frame that Barnes was behind the ball when Pereira hit it.
VAR needed to check it, and it was confirmed the goal stands.
Just after the half-hour mark, Mendy went down off the ball, needing medical attention, he was grimacing and pointing to his left knee, and so was substituted for Wilfred Ndidi who is making an appearance just 13 days after knee surgery.
Then came another injury setback for Leicester City, Vardy booted the ball with his left foot and immediately clutched his left buttock and collapsed. The entire stadium seems to have fallen silent, as the physio got to work on his left leg.
He could not continue and was replaced with Kelechi Iheanacho in the 44th minute.
With five minutes added, Leicester doubled their lead when Barnes got down the left, cut inside and picked out a lovely pass to Ricardo Pereira, bursting into the right-hand corner of the penalty area, he thumped a shot back across goal and in.
West Ham pulled one back five minutes into the restart with a good strike by Mark Noble from the penalty spot. The goal came after VAR confirmed Ndidi made contact with Haller’s knee inside the danger area.
The goal gingered the Hammers as they started asking more questions. One minute after the hour-mark, Antonio won the race to a ball lifted down the right flank and translated it into a corner, from which he very nearly backheeled past Schmeichel.
Ten minutes later, Leicester ran down the other end, slicing and dicing West Ham’s rearguard along the way, and Perez had a shot that Randolph palmed behind.
Leicester put the game to rest as it entered int’s final ten minutes when Ogbonna tried to stop Iheanacho inside the area, and got man before the ball, forcing the ref to point to the spot.
Ayoze Perez stepped up to it and converted nicely to put Leicester 3-1 ahead.
Leicester had enough time to add to their tally before the sound of the final whistle. The ball came in from the right, off Perez to Iheanacho, and back off Iheanacho to Perez, and his snap-shot went in off the far post to complete his brace.
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