English
Leicester City have gone top of the Premier League standings with a 2-0 win over Chelsea on Tuesday. First-half goals from Wilfried Ndidi and James Maddison were enough for the hosts to their 12th win of the ongoing season while Chelsea dropped eighth spot having won just two of their last eight matches.
Ndidi fired Leicester into the lead as early as the sixth minute thanks to a clever corner that caught the Blues by surprise with Ndidi driving it in off the inside of the post. The visitors were given a penalty after a foul on Christian Pulisic but upon review, it was deemed to have occurred just outside the box.
The resulting free-kick was sent over the bar by Mason Mount. Minutes later, Chelsea were caught napping again and this time Marc Albrighton’s long ball found Maddison unmarked who responded with a cool finish to double Leicester’s lead in the 41st minute.
The defeat has piled on the pressure on Chelsea manager Frank Lampard who went on a spending spree during the transfer window splurging £220 million on the likes of like Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech.
He admitted the future is not his control now.
“I can’t control it,” Lampard said after the match. “I have been asked it over the last few weeks. I understand it and it is the expectation of the club whether it is right or wrong. I took the job knowing that there will be difficult times because it is not a club ready to compete. We have had a ban, we have young players, we have new players that we can see are striving for form and to be settled into this team.”
He did criticise his players for being sluggish and questioned their desire. “The general theme of our performance was slow, sluggish with a lack of desire to run and that can come with a lack of confidence. We got beaten by the better team,” he said.
Maddison said the their current standing is a result of hard work and the team hopes to keep the spot. “It sounds nice ‘top of the Premier League’,” Maddison said. “It’s a good one psychologically because we’ve worked really hard. It’s a great achievement halfway through the season.”
“There might be teams able to spend a lot more money than us and bring in quality from abroad and pay big wages, but our team spirit and togetherness will continue to try and keep us up there,” he added.
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