Leicester 1 - 0 West HamIslam Slimani heads relieved Leicester to victory over West Ham
Home team scorersIslam Slimani 20
The way Leicester City rounded off the greatest year in their history augurs well for 2017. The champions will not retain their title, of course, but this timely reassertion of the virtues that earned them their proudest honour at least suggested they are primed to avoid an undignified descent into the relegation zone. There is a long way to go but this was a step in the right direction.
Leicester came into this game with only one win from their previous nine league matches and with Claudio Ranieri facing accusations that his persistence with the 4-4-2 system that served the side so well last season amounted to trying to make cake from stale bread. He concocted a new formation for this match and it worked a treat, but an even bigger factor than the switch to a 4-2-3-1 shape was the attitude of Leicester’s players. They played with the zest and resilience that had made them kings.
It took only 63 seconds for Riyad Mahrez to serve notice of the upsurge. The Algerian’s recent performances had fallen so far below the level that earned him the Premier League player of the year crown last season that he had been dropped for the previous home match. Here, although he did not quite reach the heights of last term, he responded in the way Ranieri had hoped. Deployed just behind his compatriot, Islam Slimani, Mahrez gave flickers of his brilliance and almost heralded a return to top form by scoring from his team’s first attack. But Darren Randolph tipped his half-volleyed shot just over the bar.
Mahrez was not outstanding: all his team-mates were playing at least as well, setting a level of intensity and slickness that West Ham could not match early on. Marc Albrighton and Demarai Gray were excellent out wide, ensuring a regular supply of threatening crosses. Slimani met one from Albrighton in the fourth minute but the striker’s header rebounded out off the post. But a similar move in the 20th minute produced the breakthrough.
The attack began thanks to quick thinking and passing by Danny Simpson and Danny Drinkwater before Albrighton delivered another delicious cross from the right and Slimani headed powerfully into the net after peeling away from Winston Reid.
It was not one-way traffic, as West Ham soon got up to speed with their hosts. They provoked moments of mayhem in the home box but were continually thwarted by defenders who had rediscovered their sharpness, as shown by the number of timely blocks on shots. Even so, Leicester were lucky in the 41st minute when Michail Antonio’s half-volley cannoned out of the crossbar.
The chance had been created by Aaron Cresswell, whose raids down the left were becoming a real nuisance for Leicester. But they were not the only source of bother for the hosts – Simpson and Daniel Amartey had thrown themselves in front of shots by Antonio and André Ayew just before that, and Kasper Schmeichel had made a fine close-range save to foil Dimitri Payet.
A free-kick by Payet forced Schmeichel into another save just before half-time and, in an increasingly helter-skelter contest, Randolph then had to make an even better stop from a free-kick by Mahrez before the teams headed off for a well-earned break.
West Ham, who had arrived at the King Power in optimistic mood following three consecutive wins, exerted strong pressure in the second half.
Schmeichel made a high-class reflex save on the hour to paw away a shot by Cresswell that took a treacherous deflection off Ben Chilwell. Recognising that the visitors were in the ascendancy, Ranieri rejigged his side in the 69th minute, replacing Mahrez with Christian Fuchs in an attempt to reinforce his team’s solidity. It worked. For the last stages of a contest strewn with eight yellow cards West Ham were generally kept away from Leicester’s goal, an Andy Carroll header into the side netting being the closest they came to an equaliser thereafter.
Leicester, indeed, ended the game on the attack and Carroll’s last significant touch was a block that prevented Chilwell from making it 2-0.
Guardian