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MOTD: Leicester City 1-0 Southampton

By on April 3, 2016

Leicester City’s great escape from Premier League relegation began a year ago this weekend and ever since, they have kept running. Just like Forrest Gump, as Foxes’ boss Claudio Ranieri once coined. They made another crucial step towards the Premier League title this afternoon with a 1-0 win over Southampton to take them seven points clear at the top of the table.

Ranieri’s men seized an opportunity to widen their cushion at the top after Tottenham Hotspur’s draw with Liverpool on Saturday and only six games and eleven points now separate them from the title. Although they have to face Manchester United, Everton and Chelsea in their last three games of the season, Leicester haven’t given any reason to doubt them this season.

The title race could conceivably go down to the final day at Chelsea, in a conceivable situation where Chelsea could be in a position to hand the title to one of their London rivals, Arsenal or Tottenham Hotspur, if they beat Leicester – or take their foot off the pedal a bit and avoid doing so.

Regardless, the last team to beat Leicester was Arsenal nearly two months ago and the Foxes have only lost three times in the league this season. At so many points in their recent string of 1-0 wins — which now makes up five of their last six matches — they have appeared under the cosh, desperately defending their lead at the top of the table, yet they have emerged unscathed, allowing just two goals since early February.

Southampton had the lion’s share of possession, yet like seventeen others before them this season, Ronald Koeman’s men were undone by Leicester’s brilliant counter-attacking and Wes Morgan was the unlikely hero, rising up to power home a first-half header.

“I’ve been getting a lot of stick because I haven’t scored all season so to keep the boys quiet and to shush them up was fantastic,” said Morgan, per The Guardian. “It’s better late than never to score a goal and an important goal it proved to be.

“Obviously we saw the [Tottenham] game yesterday and that it was a draw. It was a massive, massive game for us, we really wanted it today and to get a goal was fantastic. I was quite ill yesterday so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be well enough to play, but I felt a lot better and obviously I want to play. I had to get through it today but obviously it’s important that we all dig in.”

The towering defender has embodied the miracle of Leicester this season with his rise from the lower leagues and a penchant for popping up at the right moments.

“We score together and we defend together. That is one of our secrets,” said Ranieri. “I think it was a fantastic answer to the Premier League. We want to win and we won. Now we have to be solid and maintain our feet on the ground because next Sunday it will be another tough, tough match.”

Southampton had a golden chance to take the lead early on when Saido Mane burst in on goal, but Danny Simpson rushed back to make a vital block with Kasper Schmeichel beat.

Leicester scraped away a lead into half time following Morgan’s opener and proceeded to justify the result with a string of chances on the other side of the half. Danny Simpson should have doubled their lead with a tap-in at the far post blocked by Fraser Forster and Jose Fonte almost deflected the ball into the back of his own net soon afterward.

The title is within Leicester’s grasp now and with the odds more than 75% in their favor they would have to implode to lose it now. Even Koeman admitted that he hopes they will in the league, having been engulfed in the momentum of a title campaign that began at the KP Stadium and has come to gain the backing of football fans around the world. One way or the other it will end at Stamford Bridge, where even Chelsea-kitted fans have been handing out Leicester title scarves in recent weeks.

Homepage photo credit: Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford and Largs, United Kingdom (Ronald Koeman, Southampton Manager) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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.