James Maddison and Jamie Vardy came off the bench and scored a goal each to seal a 2-0 win for Leicester as Burnley missed the chance to move out of the relegation zone.
With two victories and a draw in their past three games, Sean Dyche’s Burnley would have moved out of the bottom three with a win over Leicester, but Brendan Rodgers’ side was deserving winners.
Let’s have a look at how the match unfolded!
Double trouble
The double replacement in the 72nd minute provided Leicester with the extra quality in the final third that they required to defeat Burnley.
Maddison scored Leicester’s first goal in the 82nd minute, receiving a pass from Vardy and past Burnley keeper Nick Pope with a beautiful curling strike.
Vardy, making his return to duty after a two-month injury layoff, secured the three points with a simple header after being set up by a superb cross from Harvey Barnes.
Vardy’s goal was his 94th in the Premier League since turning 30, breaking Ian Wright’s previous record.
A happy Vardy
Vardy was overjoyed to have hit the target, as he helped add three points on his return.
He expressed,
“It has been a long time coming. It is tough getting a big injury. To come back and to be involved in both goals and get the win, it is very good,” said the forward.
“I came on, tried to make that impact which I managed to do and we took the three points. It feels massive. I think performances have been getting better and better.”
Brilliant Pope
Pope’s late save from Barnes was one of many over the course of the 90 minutes, the first of which came in the early stages when he dove low to his left to push a Ricardo Pereira shot over the post.
Following his jinking run into the Burnley box, the right-strike back’s appeared likely to hit the bottom corner, but Pope displayed razor-sharp reflexes to deny him, then denied a diagonal effort from Patson Daka with his foot shortly afterward.
Leicester continued to dominate the game, but Pope came to Burnley’s rescue once more as he put out his right arm to block a stinging, close-range shot from Barnes after he had cut in from the left shortly before half-time.
It was a stunning goalkeeping performance from the 29-year-old, and it appeared Pope’s performance would be crucial when he got fingertips to Barnes’ curling shot just before Maddison managed to put one out of reach.
Sean Dyche comments
Burnley boss Sean Dyche said: “We weren’t as good as we have been, particularly in the first half.
“Without being terrible, we just allowed soft things against us, didn’t play with enough tempo, didn’t get the ball forward quick enough, and didn’t ask questions of Leicester.
“Second half, we got a bit more of a grip on the game, but we didn’t really open them up.
“I think Maxwel Cornet had a good chance and we had a really good chance from a set-piece, but overall we didn’t ask enough questions of Leicester in the end.”
