For the second time this year the Leicester City players responded to the news that their manager had been sacked by picking up three points and producing the sort of performance that suggests not much needs fine-tuning whenever Craig Shakespeare’s successor takes over. Who that will be remains to be seen, with no announcement imminent, but this was certainly a display to give plenty of encouragement to anyone wondering whether to take the plunge.
Do not be fooled by the scoreline. Leicester were far superior in every department and but for some outstanding goalkeeping from Lukasz Fabianski, the visitors would have been out of sight by half-time. Bright and positive from the outset, they did not look like a group of players who had arrived at the training ground on Thursday morning feeling, to borrow Michael Appleton’s description, “cheesed off and down in the dumps” about Shakespeare’s sacking.
Appleton, the caretaker manager, was entitled to be delighted with the players’ reaction 48 hours later as Leicester registered only their second league win of the season, in front of Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, the vice-chairman. It was a day when Shinji Okazaki justified his return to the side with his fifth goal of the season, Vicente Iborra caught the eye in central midfield and Riyad Mahrez, whose form has been so indifferent since Leicester won the title, looked like the player everyone thought he was two seasons ago.
Mahrez set up Okazaki’s goal with a lovely cushioned first-time pass and it was the Algerian’s cross that Federico Fernández headed into his own net in the 24th minute. To put into perspective how one-sided the game had been up until that point, Fabianski had already produced four excellent saves.
Swansea were all over the place, with and without the ball, and the boos at the final whistle told a story. Even after Alfie Mawson reduced the deficit early in the second half, the hosts never looked equalising and the truth is that it would have been an injustice if Paul Clement’s side had got anything out of the game. They have now lost four of their five home matches this season and everything points to a third successive battle against relegation.
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Leicester, in contrast, expect to finish in the top half and that objective looks perfectly plausible on the evidence of how they played here. “It’s obviously been a difficult week for everyone at the football club, but the first half, the amount of opportunities we created, and the way we created them, was very, very pleasing,” said Appleton, who will continue to take charge of the team for Tuesday’s Carabao Cup tie at home against Leeds United but seems more hopeful of holding on to his role as No2 rather than throwing his hat into the ring to take over permanently. “One game doesn’t make you a Premier League manager,” he added.
Leicester’s chances came thick and fast. Fabianski kept out Okazaki’s glancing header, tipped over efforts from Marc Albrighton and Jamie Vardy, and clawed away Wilfred Ndidi’s header before Fernández’s own goal. Kyle Naughton was more to blame though, with the right-back making a half-hearted attempt to stop the cross that the Argentinian headed past Fabianski.
Clement replaced Leon Britton with Ki Sung-yueng at the interval but within four minutes Leicester had a second. Tom Carroll’s poor free-kick was cleared and in the blink of an eye the visitors were breaking away. Albrighton picked out the unmarked Mahrez with a diagonal ball and Okazaki swept home the inviting lay-off.
Mawson’s low shot from a Renato Sanches corner beat Kasper Schmeichel seven minutes later but that was as good as it got for Swansea on another bleak afternoon in south Wales. “Last week I was really pleased with what they did. Today I’m not so pleased,” Clement said. “They’re sat in the dressing room for 10 minutes in silence waiting for me – they know that they can do a lot better.”