LEICESTER HOPEFULS
Leicester City 2 West Ham 2
In April 2016, this fixture pitted Slaven Bilic’s Last season At The Boleyn West Ham against Claudio Ranieri’s PL Champions contenders, a game that Leicester City could not lose if they were to keep their title hopes alive. The last ten minutes of the game added three more goals to the one Jamie Vardy had scored in the eighteenth minute before being sent off just after half time. With the one man advantage West Ham came more and more into the game and almost won it with a rare Andy Carroll 84th minute penalty followed swiftly two minutes later by a late strike from Aaron Cresswell that put Hammers into the lead for the first time in the game. But for Ulloa’s equalising penalty five minutes into injury, the title may have proved elusive at the eleventh hour.
Today, Leicester are languishing in the lower half of the table, whilst Hammers are attempting to keep their Champions League place hopes alive. Zouma denies the Leicester fans ninety minutes of booing and offensive songs when he withdraws from the game in the warm up, still feeling a little groggy after a dodgy stomach he’s been suffering with in the week. Issa Diop steps in to cover.
After just ten minutes Jarrod Bowen collects Diop’s inch perfect through ball and accelerates out of the reach of two Leicester defenders to plant the ball past Schmeichel.
A good enough start, but are Hammers in the kind of form to build on the early lead? The answer is no, and disappointingly for the Hammers Leicester are given a leg up when Cresswell gives away a penalty at the end of the half having elbowed the ball instead of heading it. The strong wind is to blame, apparently.
The second half starts much better for Ricardo Pereira, who finishes well to put Leicester ahead in a game they should have been well behind in by now. Even so, Hammers have had to learn to take defeat in their stride in the last month or so, and there’s still over half an hour to go.
One of the miracles of the football match is the way that a game that looked completely tied up and secured can suddenly flip into being something you end up having to save rather than win at a canter.
Thankfully, with one of the last moves of the game, Craig Dawson raises himself above the Leicester defence to plant a neatly timed shouldered effort past Schmeichel. How much shoulder, how much arm? VAR has a look, and Atkinson swiftly denies hopeful Leicester fans’ longing with a grand gesture wave towards the centre circle.
Football definitely messes with your mind. I think this as I find my eyebrows involuntarily inverting themselves ironically into a downward curve. In the end, as a fan, you find yourself having to accept a point and be delighted at the revelation rather than be celebrating the delight of three points that would have secured your place in the upper reaches of the table.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 23 Issa Diop, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 41 Declan Rice (c), 15 Craig Dawson, 8 Pablo Fornals, 10 Manuel Lanzini , 28 Tomas Souček, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 22 Saïd Benrahma, 25 Ryan Fredericks
Goalscorers: Jarrod Bowen, Craig Dawson
