Leicester City overcame Fulham in cool fashion to record their first league win since January 19th and move up to 3rd in the Premier League.
It took the visitors 17 minutes to take the lead when Kelechi Iheanacho, in for the absent Jamie Vardy, headed in from inside the box following a pinpoint James Maddison cross.
Leicester kept up the pressure that we have been so used to seeing in recent matches and not long after the opener, on 25 minutes, Leicester came close to doubling the scoreline when a ball from Ayoze Perez to the back post was headed towards goal by Jonny Evans. A block was made and the ball fell to Caglar Soyuncu of all people, who had his close range effort saved by Alphonse Areola in the Fulham net.
A few minutes before halftime, Fulham were denied a great chance to level the scores when Ademola Lookman’s corner from the left floated towards the pack post to an unmarked Tosin Adarabioyo, but the young man’s header was superbly tipped over the bar by Kasper Schmeichel.
Fulham will have been kicking themselves no doubt that Tosin’s header didn’t force an equaliser as just a minute later a Leicester charge led by James Maddison wasn’t halted by the home side as the England midfielder laid the ball off in the box to a steaming forward James Justin who collected the ball and jinked around Areola in the six yard box, the right back tapping the ball into an empty net.
The second half began and Fulham almost grabbed a goal back when half time substitute Ivan Cavaleiro, who replaced Kenny Tete, collected Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s lay off on the edge of the box, but his effort drifted wide of the right post.
The game continued to provide entertainment as moments later, Leicester had the ball in the back of the net, but the goal didn’t stand as Iheanacho was well offside when he swept the ball past Areola after the ball fell to him following Hamza Choudhury’s deflected effort.
Just past the hour mark, Leicester had yet another goal disallowed when right back Ricardo Pereira smashed an effort past Areola on the angle, but Mark Albrighton, who he exchanged passes with before his effort, was adjudged to be offside in the build up.
On 71 minutes, Bobby Reid replaced Loftus-Cheek and he almost scored soon after coming on when he found space on the right in the box, but his low effort was blocked in superb fashion by the impressive Justin.
That proved to be the last notable chance for either side in the game, meaning Leicester rise to 3rd in the table, while Fulham now find themselves eight points from safety despite sitting 18th.
After the game, Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers praised his side’s ‘excellent win’.
“ I thought we were excellent tonight, two outstanding goals, we worked their keeper and showed real moments of quality then in the second half we controlled the game without the ball and we managed the game really well.”
Scott Parker meanwhile admitted that his side just were not good enough on the night.
“That’s the cold, hard facts. We’ve lost the football match today, we know what we need to do and we need to win matches. We’ve played against a really good Leicester side but we’ve not won and the focus for us now is the next few games.”
