Iheanacho Plays For 56 Minutes, As Lookman’s Goal Sinks Liverpool

Leicester City of England attacker, Kelechi Iheanacho got back into The Foxes’ starting line-up for their English Premier League fixture on Tuesday night, but he was replaced in the 56th minute of their victory at home against Liverpool, megasportsarena.com reports.

Nigerian football fans had so much to gloat over on Tuesday night, as Wilfred Onyinyen Ndidi returned to action with Leicester, on a night Iheanacho twinkled from the start and Ademola Lookman got off the bench to hand Liverpool a 1-0 defeat at King Power Stadium.

Ndidi’s return provided a breath of fresh air for Super Eagles’ fans, who had been skeptical of his chances of being at the Africa Cup of Nations after missing The Foxes’ last match, but he was in glorious form on Tuesday night for Leicester.

Megasportsarena.com reports that it was, however, a miserable night for Jurgen Klopp and The Reds as Mohamed Salah had a penalty saved and they failed to close the six-point gap on English Premier League leaders, Manchester City.

With so much wastefulness to blame for Liverpool’s woes, Salah’s first-half penalty was saved by the brilliant Kasper Schmeichel but he did not test the goalkeeper from the rebound and nor did Sadio Mane when through after the break.

Iheanacho earned six points for his efforts, Ndidi got seven and eight went to super-sub Lookman, who punished Liverpool with a fine goal just before the hour mark and Brendan Rodgers’ depleted side held on for a memorable win that moves them back up to ninth.

There was a high tempo from the outset with Liverpool pushing and Leicester’s obvious counter-attacking threat more than enough to encourage the home support.

However, the electric atmosphere looked set to be taken down a notch when Ndidi, playing at centre-back, caught Salah inside the box and the Egyptian stood over the penalty.

Schmeichel was up to the challenge though, saving Salah’s tame penalty before the Premier League’s top scorer somehow contrived to head against the bar from the rebound.

Iheanacho was replaced in the 56th minute, but his side looked doomed ten minutes into the second half, when Jota put Mane through one-on-one but the Liverpool forward inexplicably missed the target.

That miss proved costly when Lookman came off the bench, promptly exchanged passes with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, and beat Alisson at his near post.

While Klopp threw more attacking players on, Leicester held firm with Liverpool struggling to build up any momentum as the clock continued to tick down.

In the final moments, they did ask questions, Jota and Joel Matip both headed wide, with Alisson even going up for a late corner, but Leicester held on for the points.

It was some revenge for their Carabao Cup elimination last week and a welcome boost after conceding six to Manchester City. Those contrasting results leave Liverpool six points back from City, who can extend that gap to nine points when they face Brentford on Wednesday.

Ndidi got some knocks from The Foxes’ fans for giving away the penalty, but Rodgers had a different verdict, as the coach said afterwards: “I just thought, let’s go back to basics [with our set-piece defending].

“An old school structure. Let’s defend properly. We did that tonight. The centre-halves were amazing but they all played their part. Collectively, we did really well.”