Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City fell to a humbling defeat to the Premier League leaders at the King Power Stadium last time out, days after losing to the reigning champions.
Sky Sports pundit Charlie Nicholas has expressed his disappointment with Leicester City’s defeats to Manchester City and Liverpool, slating three players for their displays against the Reds.
Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester have been impressive for most of the season, surging into the top four against many pre-season expectations and currently sitting second, but in the big games against third and first over the past few days, the Foxes came up woefully short.
Leicester got to half time just one goal down against Liverpool, Roberto Firmino netting following a cross from the impressive Trent Alexander-Arnold, though the Foxes had been under the cosh for much of the opening 45 minutes.
The floodgates then opened after the interval as James Milner scored a penalty, Firmino added his second, and Alexander-Arnold rounded off the scoring to leave Leicester a massive 12 points behind the Reds – potentially 15 given their game in hand.
Looking ahead to Saturday’s trip to West Ham, Nicholas wrote on Sky Sports News: “I was ever so disappointed with them in both of those games against Manchester City and Liverpool. They went in front against City and did not look brave enough on the ball afterwards. They started to knock it into Jamie Vardy to chase but nobody could get up the pitch to support.
“Liverpool were magical against Leicester, but they were so poor. James Maddison and Dennis Praet were disappointing, Ben Chilwell never got forward whereas Ricardo Pereira did. Brendan Rodgers has a small squad and does not have much room for manoeuvre, but now is not the time to be resting players.”
Nicholas also suggested that the trip to East London “should be one where Leicester get back to winning ways” but later in his assessment said: “Are we going to get energy and drive from West Ham? I think we might. It’s for that reason why I find this the hardest result to select. Which West Ham will turn up? If it is an aggressive one, I think it is one which will turn Leicester over.”
Leicester could have slipped to third in the table but fellow Midlands side Wolverhampton Wanderers kept Man City a point behind the Foxes thanks to a superb 3-2 victory over Pep Guardiola’s charges at Molineux on Friday night.
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