Another great day away from home for Tottenham Hotspur as we won at The King Power Stadium – just about. Leicester put up a good fight for a side sitting at the bottom of the league, including a great second half where only the heroics of Tottenham’s number one kept them from going on to win the game.
Leading up to this game, Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur travelled to The King Power Stadium looking for our fourth win in all competitions – our third in the league, something we have not accomplished yet under the Argentine. On the other hand, Leicester City found themselves at the foot of the table at Christmas and relegation was beginning to look ever likely for the Foxes.
Spurs were fast out of the blocks in the first half and led through (yet another) Harry Kane goal – his fifteenth of the season in Tottenham colours and his 21st goal in 27 appearances for both club and country (England U21’s). Not too bad for a 21 year old, ‘eh? The goal came from a fast counter attack which saw Erik Lamela find Nacer Chadli on the left, the Belgian drilled the ball across and Harry Kane showed brilliant composure and took a touch before sticking the ball into the back of Leicester City’s net. Just the start Tottenham wanted, 0-1.
Source: tottenhamhotspur.com
After that, both teams were pushing forward. Leicester pushed forward looking for a goal to bring them level, but Spurs looked threatening on the counter. Tottenham had the chance to kill the game off plenty of times during the first half an hour of the game. On one occasion, Nabil Bentaleb went through on goal, but he failed to keep his composure as he took one touch too many instead of shooting or even passing to Erik Lamela who was free in the box. A moment to quickly forget for the 20 year old Algerian international.
Could we live to rue those missed chances and could Leicester have pegged us back? You bet your life they could.
Three minutes into the second half, Mahrez got passed Bentaleb who didn’t make much of a challenge and put in a low cross towards Ulloa who used his strength to get in front of Federico Fazio and finish to get Leicester back on levelled terms. Ever since going behind, Leicester City had thrown men forward, they got the ball into the box and struck the woodwork and they eventually found the goal that was eluding them for so long. 1-1.
Leicester City didn’t sit back after that goal, the Foxes were looking to go ahead and had us on the ropes for most parts of the second half. Minutes after Leicester had equalised, Mahrez – who has been pulling all sorts of strings for Leicester – beat Lloris from a splendidly taken free kick; unfortunately for him, the woodwork once again come to Hugo Lloris’ and Tottenham’s aid.
As we always do, we managed to pull the points out of the hat yet again despite putting in a poor performance for large parts of the game and being second best. Harry Kane won Spurs a free kick to the left of the Leicester City penalty area. Christian Eriksen seemed to have been lining up a cross, but instead the Danish international went for goal and shocked everyone present in The King Power when he found the net. If you don’t buy a ticket, you don’t win the raffle. 1-2.
Source: tottenhamhotspur.com
Spurs sat off after that and invited Leicester City pressure for the final 15/20 minutes of the game. The Foxes came close on many occasions and tested a very shaky Tottenham defence. In the closing minutes of the game, Leicester thought they were denied two clear penalties and Hugo Lloris made a brilliant save on the line to ensure that Tottenham returned back to N17 with three crucial Boxing Day points.
Nozrul Ahmed
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- Leicester City 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur – Match Report - December 27, 2014