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MOTD: Leicester City 1-0 Norwich City

By on February 27, 2016

For eighty-nine minutes, Norwich City’s plan of containment for Leicester City worked perfectly. Jamie Vardy was nearly invisible, Riyad Mahrez was ineffective and the visitors at the King Power Stadium held Leicester to mostly shots from range.  For eighty-nine minutes, Leicester City seemed destined for a draw that would give both Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur the chance to overtake them in the Premier League.  For eighty-nine minutes.

Crucially, however, Leonardo Ulloa broke the deadlock at the last gasp with a thrilling winner.  Eighty-nine minutes of frustration for Leicester and hard work from Norwich City was all re-written within a single moment and in the end, Norwich could not stop Leicester on their seemingly irrepressible path towards the Premier League title.  Now only eleven more teams will have that opportunity as the Foxes close in on the silverware, five points clear at the top.

“It was a difficult match. Norwich played well and closed the space, but we believed until the end. This victory was very important to restart after the [2-1 defeat to Arsenal last weekend],” said Claudio Ranieri, per the BBC.

“I said before the Arsenal match that Norwich would be more difficult. Both teams could have scored a goal in the final 20 minutes.

“The conclusion I have drawn from this is that my players believe until the end. That, for me, is very important. If the other teams start to win, they can win all the matches. But for us, the next match is always the final match. That is our mentality.”

For Norwich, the result leaves them dangling dangerously close to the drop, level on points with eighteenth-placed Newcastle United, who have a game in hand.

Norwich gaffer Alex Neil said: “We had the better chances and we kept Mahrez and Vardy quiet.  We just lost Mahrez right at the end when we could have dealt with him, because by the time the cross comes in it’s too late. The boys are gutted, but they put in a good day’s work.”

Leicester’s usual panache was fleeting and the final touch eluded them in the final third.  Shinji Okazaki missed a half-chance and Marc Albrighton had a shot from distance, but otherwise they had trouble penetrating a compact Norwich and didn’t manage a shot on target until the hour mark.

At the other end of the pitch, Cameron Jerome came close with a first-half header and Nathan Redmond forced Kasper Schmeichel into a smart stop on the brink of the half, but Norwich were weary to commit too many men forward as Leicester began to pin them back.

Yet Mahrez was the only Leicester player breaking through Norwich’s back line with incisive runs and his cross for Ulloa to finish in the eighty-ninth minute made all the difference.

Homepage photo credit: Nick, via Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.