Manchester City 3 Leicester 1: Gabriel Jesus ends barren home run as City brush aside fellow title challengers
RIYAD MAHREZ was a leading light in Leicester’s unlikely Premier League triumph.
And it was the former Foxes favourite who made the difference as current employers Manchester City lengthened the odds on his former club repeating the feat this season.
Mahrez scored one, played his part in another and might have had a hat-trick in an impressive City victory.
Appropriately enough at this time of year, Kevin De Bruyne gave a present to Jesus for City’s crucial third and the Belgian was arguably as influential as Mahrez.
But the Algerian winger was the central figure in a game which kept Leicester 10 points adrift of runaway leaders Liverpool and lifted Pep Guardiola’s team to just a point behind them.
The Mahrez of 2015/16 is probably the only member of Claudio Ranieri’s 5,000-1 squad who would displace anyone from the current side.
He has struggled to recapture that form and consistency since his £60m move to the Etihad but he was very much in the mood against his former club.
Leicester’s 3-1 win at the Etihad in February 2016 was a key game in their odds-defying championship charge.
There were only three survivors from Claudio Ranieri’s starting 11 on the pitch at the beginning of this game and one of them, Mahrez, was wearing a light blue shirt.
Although another of the trio, Jamie Vardy, drew first blood, Mahrez was very much the man of the first half and probably the match as the third, Leicester goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, conceded three times.
Rodgers’ Leicester like to play a far more attractive, possession-based type of football than the title winners.
But Guardiola and City were not in the mood to be beaten at their own game on home turf.
From the first whistle, the home side pressed high and hard, forcing mistakes and pinning the visitors in their own half.
A Leicester defence that had kept more clean sheets than any in the Premier League looked nervous.
When De Bruyne played Sterling through, a goal seemed inevitable but Jonny Evans did enough to put the England forward off.
Moments later, Mahrez had a fierce effort blocked before laying the ball back for back for the Belgian to hit a low shot that smacked Schmeichel’s near post.
Then the Algerian winger made England left back Ben Chilwell look like a schoolboy with some brilliant trickery near the byline but Gabriel Jesus could not put enough on his stabbed shot to beat Schmeichel.
It sounds like being wise after the event to say that Leicester had nonetheless shown their potential to be dangerous on the break - or rather, Vardy had done so all on his own.
But after 20 minutes of being hounded, the Foxes took the lead.
It was the sort of goal that Leicester and Vardy scored for fun in 2015/16.
They won the ball back deep in their own half and quickly worked it to Harvey Barnes, who could see his striker making one of those trademark runs.
Vardy’s pace was way too much for Fernandinho but he still had plenty to do as he bore down on goal.
A heavy touch seemed to have made the chance harder, yet as Ederson sensed the chance to smother the ball, Vardy stretched out his left leg to dink it delicately over the City keeper and into the net.
He and Leicester might have had a second but another charge in the inside left channel ended with him shooting well over the bar.
But City did not have long to wait for the equaliser.
Schmeichel had kept out a Sterling effort with his feet but the Leicester captain was completely wrongfooted when Mahrez cut in past Chilwell and his on-target shot took a crucial deflection off Soyuncu.
The home side were back on top and took the lead when a Mahrez pass found Sterling.
The City man made the most of the contact by Ricardo Pereira but it was a definite penalty and Schmeichel’s left hand was not strong enough to keep out Ilkay Gundogan’s spotkick.
There was still time for the otherwise quiet James Maddison to force a decent save from Ederson before Mike Dean called time on the opening period.
JESUS ENDS DROUGHT
Mahrez should have killed off the game before the hour. First he scuffed his shot weakly at Schmeichel after being teed up by Sterling, then he fired wide, much to Pep Guardiola’s frustration on both occasions.
Vardy soon reminded City how costly such failings could be, racing down the right and sending in a brilliant cross that Barnes was unable to direct towards goal.
The home side were still very much on top and only a smart Schmeichel save denied Mahrez.
A third goal seemed inevitable, though, and it arrived when De Bruyne surged into the box and crossed for Jesus to bundle home at the far post.
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A few thousand miles away, Liverpool were trying to become world champions.
It will take a Devon Loch-style collapse for them to fail to be kings of England for the first time in 30 years.
But Mahrez was the main man as City sent out a message that they, rather than Leicester, are the side best equipped to keep the Reds honest if the procession becomes a race.