There are still six months of the season to go but Tottenham Hotspur’s title challenge already looks to be over. It is hard to reach any other conclusion after Mauricio Pochettino’s side suffered a third successive away defeat in the league for the first time since 2014 when Tim Sherwood was in charge, leaving Spurs facing the prospect of being 16 points behind Manchester City by the time they run out at Vicarage Road on Saturday.
Tottenham, quite simply, have lost their way domestically. They have collected only four points from their last five league fixtures and are unrecognisable from the team that comprehensively outplayed Real Madrid at Wembley. Pochettino was clearly bitterly upset with this latest setback and did not hold back afterwards as he accused his players of lacking fight during a “sloppy” first-half performance that featured two wonderful Leicester City goals.
Jamie Vardy scored the first, registering the 100th league goal of his career to silence the chants of the Tottenham supporters who had taunted him relentlessly in the first 10 minutes about his wife’s presence “in the jungle”, and Riyad Mahrez added an exquisite second on the stroke of half-time to put Leicester on their way to a first home league win over Tottenham since 2002, when they were playing at Filbert Street.
Although Spurs were poor in that first half, Moussa Sissoko and Dele Alli squandered excellent chances to score in between Leicester’s goals and in many ways that profligacy was the story of their night. Christian Eriksen was guilty of a bad miss just before Harry Kane pulled a goal back with 11 minutes remaining and then Fernando Llorente, who is still looking for his first Tottenham goal, should have made it 2-2. Instead the Spaniard lifted his shot over the bar from only four yards out and the expressions in the Spurs dugout said it all.
There was still time for one last bit of drama deep into injury-time. Danny Rose, making only his second Premier League appearance of the season, went to ground in the area following a challenge from Wilfred Ndidi. At first glance it looked like a penalty but Anthony Taylor, the referee, waved away the Spurs appeals and a few seconds later Leicester were celebrating three valuable points.
Claude Puel, Leicester’s manager, described it as their best performance since he took over and hailed the “two fantastic goals” that lit up the first half. Vardy’s was a beauty and arrived following a superb lofted pass from Marc Albrighton. Running in behind Davinson Sánchez, Vardy stretched out his right leg to steer a controlled volley over the head of Hugo Lloris, who was caught in no man’s land as the ball sailed over his head, and it was no surprise that the striker set off in the direction of the Spurs fans, cupping a hand to his ear.
With the elegant Vicente Iborra imperious in the centre of midfield, Pochettino scrapped his three-man central defence and pushed Eric Dier further forward as Spurs tried to gain a foothold. Kasper Schmeichel then saved impressively from Sissoko and Alli before Mahrez, with a moment of brilliance, gave Leicester some breathing space. With Rose caught upfield, Mahrez cut inside Jan Vertonghen and glided across the edge of the area before curling a left-footed shot from 20 yards that arced into the far corner.
Spurs were up against it and Pochettino went for broke in the second half. At one stage Tottenham were virtually playing with five attackers as Son Heung-min, Érik Lamela and Llorente all came off the bench to join Alli and Kane.
Lamela, who was making his first appearance in 13 months after injury, had an instant impact, setting up Kane’s goal with a clever pass that the England international thumped past Schmeichel. It was his 16th goal of the season but not enough to prevent Spurs from losing again on the road.
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