Philip Billing scored the only goal of the game to help Bournemouth produce one of the narrow football scores of the weekend in the Premier League. Before kickoff, it was revealed that Leicester is in advanced talks with Jesse Marsch about replacing Brendan Rodgers, but it was first-team coaches Adam Sadler and Mike Stowell in charge of the Foxes’ seventh defeat in eight league games. Leicester, who are now two points from safety in 19th place, showed some fight in the second half after the introductions of Kelechi Iheanacho and Patson Daka but fell short and lost Harvey Barnes to injury to compound their troubles. Bournemouth moves up to 15th in the table with their third win in five games, putting three points between themselves and the relegation zone with eight games remaining.
Bournemouth came within five minutes of opening the scoring when Billing’s free-kick from the edge of the box hit the outside of a post. However, Leicester looked the more dangerous in the opening exchanges, with Jamie Vardy coming dangerously close to connecting with Maddison’s cross in the box. The visitors gradually gained control of the game as their lively midfield outmatched Leicester’s. After receiving the ball in the area, Dominic Solanke should have scored his sixth goal of the season, but his left-footed drive went wide. After Maddison’s back pass was picked up by Billing, who delivered a clinical finish to beat Daniel Iversen and give his side the lead, Bournemouth was granted an early lead.
After the break, Bournemouth had the bit between their teeth as Daniel Amartey – selected for this game over Harry Souttar – struggled to deal with Billing and Solanke. Leicester depended heavily on custodian Iversen, who made two saves to deny Chris Mepham and Jack Stephens. Iversen was called upon once more to stop Solanke from close range at an angle.
Leicester roared back into life with the introductions of Iheanacho and Daka, with Maddison doing his best to redeem himself only to see his long-range shot saved by Bournemouth custodian Neto. However, Leicester’s comeback was short-lived, as Bournemouth slowed the game to frustrate the hosts, who were greeted with more whistles at full-time. After the game, owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha was left scratching his chin, with a difficult dilemma looming over him.
“It was quite difficult to bear. As you might understand, I’m quite low. I’m not going to disguise it as anything else because it was a big game. We knew it was a big game and one we wanted to win, so we worked incredibly hard this week to attempt to win,” Leicester City midfielder James Maddison said. “I made a clumsy error with a clumsy pass, and it lost us. To be honest, I tried everything I could just to erase it and not do too much to make amends. You can sometimes try too hard. I just tried to be the usual player that I am and contribute in the future, but that was not to be today. It hurts.”
“We are very disappointed – there is no getting around it. You can see that the team is currently lacking in confidence,” Leicester interim boss Adam Sadler said. “We’re in a struggle, we have eight games left, and we have to stick together. That’s ultimately important, being ready for that fight and carrying it over to next week’s game against Manchester City. We had plenty of time to do something about it, but we couldn’t on this particular occasion. He’s a huge player for this football club; we’ll have a couple of days to recover before returning to work on Tuesday.”
“It’s a significant victory. Every Premier League victory is significant for us. We’ve now had four in the previous eight games, which is huge. They are quite difficult to come by. You put in the effort and discover a way to win enough,” Bournemouth boss Gary O’Neil said. “We are relieved. It didn’t have to be this close or this difficult. We should have done better with our chances, similar to Brighton. We should’ve been more clinical, and the game should’ve ended there, but it didn’t. We have shown in the first half that we can play some very excellent stuff, but Leicester began to come back towards the finish, and we had to show a different side. We had to dig in since we hadn’t converted enough of our chances to secure the game.”
For more football scores, click here
