Leicester leapt to third place in the Premier League with a performance that can only feed their ambitions to become a regular part of the elite. After the win here against Tottenham Hotspur last week, this was a very different challenge and they overcame it with pizzazz. Newcastle wound up a rabble with their manager, Steve Bruce, condemning “a complete surrender”.
Ricardo Pereira got Leicester going with a superb goal in the first half before Isaac Hayden was sent off for Newcastle, who had already begun to crumble with 11 players. Jamie Vardy scored twice in the second half, Wilfred Ndidi helped himself to one and the visitors’ haplessness was encapsulated by Paul Dummett inadvertently diverting a cross by Dennis Praet into his own goal.
Leicester made it all look so straightforward that one could easily have been duped into thinking this contest was always likely to pan out this way. But Newcastle have been something of a bête noire et blanche to Leicester in recent seasons, winning here on their last two visits by absorbing pressure before striking on the counter-attack. Brendan Rodgers had anticipated them taking a similar approach this time so warned his players to be patient. This, he said, would be a serious test of their creativity, all the more so without James Maddison, who was absent with an ankle injury.
It transpired that Leicester needed just 16 minutes to open the scoring. Once they started, only the final whistle could stop them. “We were nowhere near the level required,” Bruce said, accusing his side of “complete surrender, too quickly, too easily. I’ve only been [Newcastle’s manager] for two or three months but I certainly hadn’t witnessed what I witnessed here”.
At least it took a goal of true beauty to open up Newcastle the first time. Pereira picked up the ball in his right‑back position and hurtled forward, exchanging a snappy one-two with Ayoze Pérez near the touchline before charging to the edge of the box, from where he sent a wonderful low curling shot beyond the reach of Martin Dubravka. No wonder Rodgers ranks the Portuguese among the Premier’s League best right-backs, saying: “Young Trent [Alexander-Arnold] at Liverpool and Kyle Walker at Manchester City are top operators and [Pereira] is right up there with them.”
Leicester could have been in front even before Pereira’s masterpiece. In the second minute Harvey Barnes stormed down the left and sent over a low cross that invited Perez to score against the club he left in the summer, but the forward failed to make a clean connection from eight yards, leaving Dubravka with a comfortable save.
Newcastle briefly looked dangerous after that, with Miguel Almirón particularly bright for about a quarter of an hour. But once Pereira scored, Newcastle were forced to accept their inferior status. Leicester soon made the class distinction even clearer.
They nearly doubled their lead within two minutes, the artful Youri Tielemans releasing Ben Chilwell for a close-range shot that Dubravka did well to block. The interplay down the left between Tielemans, Chilwell and Harvey Barnes became a regular delight for onlookers, except the overwhelmed ones in black and white.
Newcastle’s ordeal deepened when Hayden was ordered off for a reckless tackle on Praet. The midfielder protested he had won the ball but the more pertinent fact was that after doing so he careered into his opponent, driving his right foot into Praet’s shin.
Dominant though Leicester were, Vardy had little sight of goal in the first half, apart from a header that he glanced over the bar. But in the 54th minute Leicester’s arch-predator made his mark following another elegantly worked move. Chilwell started it with a nice dummy and pass in midfield before Tielemans dabbed the ball into the path of Vardy, whose shot was well struck but, even so, should have been saved the near post by Dubravka, who let it squirt past him.
The contest was effectively over but Rodgers’ side did not just want to beat Newcastle, they wanted to demolish them. “The players showed wonderful appetite,” said Rodgers. “We were hungry for goals.”
Newcastle put up feeble resistance. When Praet won the ball in midfield, he offloaded it to Pereira and ran forward to receive the return pass before trying to cross to a teammate in the middle. His cross deflected off Dummett and into the net. Marc Albrighton came off the bench to add to the home team’s fun, supplying a characteristically precise cross to Vardy, who nodded in to make it 4-0. From a similar area on the left, Chilwell delivered the cross that led to the fifth goal, Ndidi taking it down before swivelling and shooting low into the net.
Since Rodgers took charge in February, Leicester have amassed more Premier League points than anyone but Manchester City and Liverpool. Next week they go to Anfield for a match that will arguably be the biggest test either of those sides has faced this season. “I’m really looking forward to it because I haven’t been back since I left,” said Rodgers. “It’ll be a tough game, of course, but we’ll look to embrace that challenge.”
