West Ham 2 - 3 LeicesterLeicester’s Kasper Schmeichel plays heroic role in West Ham defeat
Home team scorersManuel Lanzini 20
Andre Ayew 63
Away team scorersRiyad Mahrez 5
Robert Huth 7
Jamie Vardy 38
Not for the first time this week, Kasper Schmeichel was the Leicester City hero. Robert Snodgrass’s free-kick had squirmed through the Leicester wall and fallen to Andy Carroll and a dramatic West Ham United equaliser looked inevitable. Carroll drew back his left foot and prepared to land the decisive blow. He made solid contact with the ball. The crowd was poised, ready to lift the roof off the London Stadium.
But there he was. Schmeichel. Time stood still. Spreading himself so wide that he looked as though he was about to smother Carroll with a massive bear hug, the man whose penalty save against Sevilla ensured that Leicester are the last English team left in the Champions League came to their rescue again.
They had come so close to blowing it. Yet Leicester have rediscovered their champion swagger back and have remembered how to fight for each other. They held on to claim their first away win in the Premier League in 342 days and moved six points clear of the bottom three.
The Craig Shakespeare revival shows no sign of slowing down. Leicester’s response to the heavy criticism they endured after sacking Claudio Ranieri has been a reminder that the best teams do their talking on the pitch.
Their faultless start to life under Shakespeare has silenced all those jibes about a dressing room full of treacherous snakes and the Foxes arrived in east London having demonstrated how fantastic they can be during that gutsy midweek victory over Sevilla.
“We’re going to Madrid,” the Leicester fans chanted, giddily looking forward to next month’s Champions League quarter-final against Atlético Madrid, and it was not long before they had further cause for celebration.
It was a whirlwind opening from the visitors, who took advantage of West Ham’s muddled defending by scoring three cheap goals inside the opening 38 minutes.
Chaos reigned whenever Leicester had bodies in the area. Riyad Mahrez’s goal in the fifth minute was a case in point. The danger looked minimal when he swung a cross into the middle from the right, but the ball flew over Jamie Vardy’s head, then past Shinji Okazaki and drifted past Darren Randolph almost in slow motion.
West Ham’s goalkeeper was picking the ball out of his net again two minutes later. Mahrez rolled a free-kick to Marc Albrighton, who crossed for the unmarked Robert Huth to head past Randolph.
Slaven Bilic could not believe what he was witnessing, yet this kind of inertia has become commonplace under his watch. Winless in five matches, West Ham were all over the place, even though this was a rare occasion when their starting 11 contained a proper right-back. Cheikhou Kouyaté has filled in there in recent weeks, a square peg in a round hole, but Mark Noble’s injury forced Bilic to move the Senegalese into his favoured midfield role and start Sam Byram.
Kouyaté soon found himself trotting back into central defence when Winston Reid went down with a hamstring injury after 18 minutes. On came Snodgrass and West Ham hauled themselves back into the game when Manuel Lanzini delicately feathered a free-kick into the top right corner.
West Ham tore into Leicester for a while. Yet Leicester edged further ahead shortly before half-time. Carroll missed Mahrez’s corner at the near post, a scramble ensued and the ball fell to Vardy, who finished emphatically from close range for his fourth goal in his past five matches.
West Ham turned to Lanzini for inspiration. He was courageous enough to take the ball and attempt to break through Leicester’s two banks of four with feints and dribbles. He tried his luck again from another free-kick and although Schmeichel turned his curling effort wide, West Ham scored from the resulting corner. Carroll headed it back into the middle and André Ayew nodded home.
Leicester were finally in a game. Morgan’s absence meant that Younes Benalouane was starting his first league game this season and the Algerian looked an obvious pressure point for an increasingly desperate West Ham to squeeze.
With 17 minutes left, Carroll rose above Benalouane at the far post and powered a low header towards the bottom left corner, only for Schmeichel to deny him with a superb save.
Leicester were wobbling. Ayew spurned a wonderful opportunity, blazing over with only Schmeichel to beat, and Kouyaté had a shot scrambled off the line. Chances came. Chances went. When Roger East blew his final whistle, Schmeichel raised both fists in the air, a picture of triumph.
Guardian
