Leicester City 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur

Leicester City 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur

Riyad Mahrez 82



Leicester City do not do dull. Briefly it looked like Claudio Ranieri’s side would be punished with defeat for a uneventful display but Dele Alli’s 81st-minute goal for Tottenham Hotspur proved instead to be the trigger for more drama starring the irrepressible Foxes.

Riyad Mahrez inevitably played a prominent role, the Algerian claiming his fourth goal of the season by dancing in from the right and firing past Hugo Lloris in the 82nd minute. Lloris then had to make a superb reaction save to prevent Wes Morgan from plundering a third successive victory for Leicester.

There had been little early indication that the match would reach such a hectic conclusion. Indeed, when the referee ordered drinks breaks mid-way through each half due to the intense heat, there were mutterings that the players should take some sort of legal elixir because the match had been mostly moribund until then.

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The first such break was at least followed by the game’s first shot on target, Kasper Schmeichel forced to push away a low drive by Mousa Dembélé in the 28th minute. But the only other quality to laud in the first half was the players’ energy, as both sides lacked creativity and precision.

Tottenham lost Christian Eriksen to a training-ground injury in the build-up and without the Dane they looked alarmingly pedestrian in a first period during which Harry Kane barely featured. The visitors improved in the second half and should have taken the lead in the 48th minute but Nacer Chaldi shot wildly after being put through by Kyle Walker.

Kane created a chance for himself in the 64th minute, bustling his way to the edge of the six-yard area, but his eventual shot did not have the power to beat Schmeichel. Eriksen’s deputy, Erik Lamela, contributed little and was replaced in the 65th minute by Alli – the 19-year-old made a much more positive impression and pointed his side towards what would have been their first win of the season when he stooped to head in a cross from Chadli in the 81st minute.

Leicester reacted immediately through Mahrez. The winger had shown flickers of his speed and trickiness earlier, but in the 82nd minute he scorched into the box before firing an unstoppable shot into the net. That reinvigorated Leicester and Spurs found themselves having to cling on for a point in the dying minutes, with Lloris securing one with a smart block from a close-range header from Morgan.

Guardian