Spurs 5 City 4
Report by Kate Thompson
This match epitomised the ‘curate’s egg’ nature of Leicester City’s season. The attacking was impressive, with four excellent goals, but the defending was woeful. Sadly, Simpson was badly at fault for the first Spurs goal and should have done more to stop their equaliser, and Gray gifted them another.
It all started so well with a goal inside three minutes. A foul on Gray on the left wing led to a good cross from Mahrez, which Vardy headed into the corner of the net. However, within only a few minutes, Simpson tried to pass the ball out of defence but only succeeded in giving it to a Tottenham player. A quick pass to Kane and it was 1-1.
Within less than ten more minutes, Riyad had put us ahead again when his awareness allowed him to hammer the loose ball into the net. This is how it stayed until half-time; apparently Spurs were booed off by their supporters but I didn’t hear this.
Arguably the best goal of the match came almost immediately after the restart when Ineanacho shrugged off the attentions of a Spurs defender to score a fantastic goal in front of the Leicester fans.
Unfortunately, the poor defending by City allowed Tottenham to take the lead, first through Lamela and then by an unfortunate own goal from Fuchs’ knee. Finally, Lamela scored again to make it 4-3 – all three Spurs goals coming in 11 minutes of madness.
We were not finished though and a trademark Mahrez/Vardy move made it all square again; Riyad slipped a ball through to Vardy, who managed to stay onside, and he smashed it into the net.
You couldn’t take your eyes off the game for a moment and it was Kane again (who else?) who scored what turned out to be the winner in the 76th minute. There were further chances for both sides but the score stayed at 5-4 to Spurs after an exciting match, but one littered with errors from both sides.
I can’t help but reflect that if City had played like that against some of the so-called smaller teams, we would have finished much higher up the table.
For the record, Simpson was replaced by Choudhury in the 56th minute, Gray by Diabete in the 61st and Ineanacho by Barnes in the 85th. The unused substitutes included two more under-23s, in Ndukwu and Hughes.
Like many City fans, I would have taken 9th and two good cup runs at the beginning of the season but the ‘new manager bounce’ when Puel was appointed raised expectations. The jury is still out and I, for one, really can’t decide whether he should go or stay. Fortunately, it is not my decision!
Tottenham: Lloris, Walker-Peters, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose, Sissoko, Wanyama, Lucas Moura, Eriksen, Lamela, Kane. Subs: Son, Sanchez, Vorm, Llorente, Alli, Foyth, Davies.
Leicester: Jakupovic, Simpson, Morgan, Maguire, Fuchs, Adrien Silva, Iborra, Mahrez, Iheanacho, Gray, Vardy. Subs: Hamer, Benalouane, Barnes, Diabate, Choudhury, Hughes, Ndukwu.
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation