Kelechi Iheanacho was ‘surprised’ by how easy Eric Dier made it for him to score Leicester City’s third goal in Saturday’s thumping win over Tottenham Hotspur, former Premier League midfielder Darren Ambrose tells talkSPORT (12 February, 7pm).
There was something so utterly predictable about the way Spurs fell apart at the King Power. Just six days after producing arguably their best and most complete performance of the entire campaign – outclassing and outplaying Manchester City in North London – Jekyll gave way to Hyde away at Brendan Rodgers’ improving Foxes.
A Papy Mendy stunner and a James Maddison sweep turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead inside two first-half minutes. Worse was still to come; Dier standing idly by as Iheanacho curled in a third on the strike of half-time.
You’d have seen more urgency from one of those plastic silhouettes strikers use for shooting practice on the training ground.
Eric Dier flops as Tottenham suffer Leicester City hammering
“(Tottenham are) inconsistent. I’ve said this all season. The defending was atrocious,” sighs Ambrose, the Spurs-mad former Newcastle United and Crystal Palace ace.
“The first goal, (Ivan) Perisic didn’t get out to Mendy quickly enough. Get out! Stop the shot!
“And the third goal, Eric Dier’s defending was outrageously bad. I think Iheanacho was surprised that he didn’t make a challenge. It kind of shocked Iheanacho. He just placed it into the corner.”
News that Rodrigo Bentancur – scorer of Spurs’ 14th minute opener at Leicester and one of Antonio Conte’s most consistent performers – could miss up to six months with an ACL tear was, in a very literal sense, insult to injury.
“Now, I’m lead to believe we’ve lost Bentancur. That’s a huge loss,” Ambrose adds.
“You beat Manchester City, and I always knew it was going to happen. I thought; ‘We are going to lose the next game’. It’s frustrating. You put in a fantastic performance against Manchester City, get the 1-0 victory. And then you get pummelled by Leicester.
“But we are still in the top-four running.”
With Newcastle stumbling too, Tottenham are still just two points adrift of the Champions League places, despite playing a game more than Eddie Howe’s EFL Cup finalists.
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