London, Jan 26 (IANS) Tottenham Hotspur succumbed to a fourth consecutive Premier League defeat against Leicester City at the Tottenham Stadium on Sunday as pressure on Ange Postecoglou increases.
Spurs’ last win in the league came against Southampton on December 16 and the North London side has since earned only one point, a 2-2 draw against Wolves, in seven league outings. This run-in has brought the side to 15th position in the table.
After an energetic opening third of the game, on his first Premier League start this season, Richarlison headed in Spurs’ opening goal through a cross from Pedro Porro. Richarlison was allowed to get behind by Wout Faes and converted assuredly on the 33rd-minute mark.
The hosts carried the lead into half-time but it was soon undone by a frantic start to the next 45 minutes. Vardy bundled the ball into the back of the net for an equaliser one minute into the second-half thanks to a squared ball from Bilal El Khannouss squeezing past Antonin Kinsky in goal.
Four minutes later, Bilal El Khannouss curled a strike into the bottom corner from 20 yards to complete the drastic turnaround.
The result also meant a second win for Leicester, under the tenure of Ruud van Nistelrooy, who have now moved out of the relegation zone in 17th place and are six points behind Tottenham. Vardy, who scored his 10th goal against Tottenham, was ecstatic with his side’s performance and hailed the team’s grit on a tough night.
“It’s big. It stops the rot we’ve been in. The lads have battled through for the full 90 minutes, it’s credit to ourselves and the manager for the stuff on the training pitch. We’ve put that onto the pitch.
“We look at how they play all week. We saw there is space and opportunities to get the ball forward quicker, we have to capitalise on that. You want to be the team that plays nice football but sometimes there’s not room to do that. We knuckled down, stayed together and got the big win,” said Vardy in the post-game interview.
–IANS
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