3️⃣ points as Vardy treble heaps pressure on Guardiola and Man City | OneFootball

Leicester beat Manchester City 5-2 on Sunday with Jamie Vardy netting a hat-trick.

Pep Guardiola’s side looked exhausted and out of ideas as they were downed by the Foxes thanks to three penalties.

Here’s what we made of it.

At what cost?

Before kick off Pep Guardiola insisted that footballing authorities across Europe are “not thinking about the players” after he revealed Manchester City only had 13 players to choose from because of injury.

The likes of Eric Garcia came into the side, with Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez making up a pretty fearsome-looking front three.

But it was clear the further this game progressed that this is going to be a long season, not just for City but for every club in the Premier League.

A game which fizzed in the opening exchanges slowly divulged into something more leaden and ponderous.

There was an awful lot of passive possession punctured only by clever movement by Vardy inside the City area.

But, let’s be fair here, you really cannot blame the players or the coaches

Both of these sides played in midweek, they both have European commitments coming up and squads stretched to absolute breaking point.

There has been no end of excitement in the Premier League over the past two weekends but at some point we have to ask at what cost?

Walk on the sluggish side

Kyle Walker had a, let’s say, interesting lockdown.

The details are there for people to Google but it looked on paper as if his time at Manchester City was running out.

With Pep Guardiola’s game so dependant on full-backs who can attack space as well as they can defend, many wondered whether time was running out for the 30-year-old.

This proved to be yet another game where Walker impressed until he didn’t.

For the opening 30 minutes Walker looked like a man on a mission and continued what has been some fine, post-lockdown form.

The former Tottenham man has clearly lost none of his pace, but was also a creative hub down the right-hand side throughout and caused James Justin all sorts of problems.

But then he undid all that good work on 37 minutes when he crawled all over the back of Vardy and conceded a penalty.

It’s yet another example of a concentration issue which has blighted much of his career and with age now not on his side, it’s going to be fascinating to see how Guardiola approaches the right-hand side of defence going forward.

Better and better

We can’t do a preciś of this match without mentioning Jamie Vardy – the Dorian Gray of the Premier League.

Leicester’s evergreen striker just gets better and better and is well on his way to claiming anther Golden Boot come the end of the season.

He performs, almost without fail, against the top six and the former England international was at it again this evening as he collected the match ball after firing three past Ederson.

At 33 there will come a time, not too far in the future, when the Foxes will have to look to replace Vardy – thankfully, that time is not right now.

What a centre-forward he is.