James Maddison's superb second-half strike earned Leicester City a 2-2 draw with Southampton in an entertaining contest at St Mary's Stadium.
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James Maddison’s superb second-half strike earned Leicester City a 2-2 draw with Southampton in an entertaining contest at St Mary’s Stadium. Jan Bednarek’s close-range finish gave Southampton the lead with just three minutes played. Leicester equalised through Jonny Evans with 22 minutes completed. Evans reacted quickest to score after Wilfred Ndidi’s shot had been parried by Alex McCarthy. Saints restored their lead in the 34th minute when Che Adams headed in Nathan Redmond’s cross. The visitors levelled four minutes after the break. Maddison astutely beat Tino Livramento with a skilful drag-back before firing a low shot past McCarthy at his near post.
McCarthy produced a great save to deny Harvey Barnes. However, Jamie Vardy could not hold his nerve when through on goal as the Foxes were unable to find a late winner. Leicester climb to eighth on 19 points, four clear of Southampton who drop to 16th. Ralph Hasenhüttl made three changes to his starting line-up. The same includes only a second Premier League start of the season for Nathan Tella, who began on the left flank. Nathan Redmond, also earned a recall, on the opposite side.
Hasenhüttl was left largely impressed by his side’s display.
“I think the first half was brilliant, I must say. Everything we wanted to do was working perfect, and in the second half we had immediately a chance for scoring. We then conceded the equaliser which was a little bit of a booster for them and it was hard for us to find our rhythm back. You could feel in the end our power was getting a bit down. We were still fighting and going for the third goal, but gave them two big chances with Kyle [Walker-Peters] – this was definitely something that usually kills you, but an important point on the board for us in the Premier League,” he said in an interaction with Southampton’s official website.
Brendan Rodgers hailed the resilience of his Leicester City players after they twice hit back to draw 2-2 at Southampton.
“A poor first half, a poor mentality and attitude. In the second half, it was much more better, much more aggressive in our game. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall coming in changed the dynamic of the team; energy, quality, enthusiasm, mentality. He was excellent. That just got us playing, passing in the game quicker, running quicker, being more aggressive when we didn’t have the ball. In the second half, we earned the right to play and we were much better. We’re trying to get stability in the team, but of course, it’s a busy period and a busy schedule. We have to be able to cope with that. That’s the challenge of European football,” he said in an interaction with LCFC TV.
“It’s the one thing you can say about the team, the resilience of the players is there, you can see that. That’s something that we’ve built up over this time that we’ve been working together. We’re not a team that’s going to unravel. Our spirit is there, but there’s got to be a greater concentration from the beginning of games,” added Rodgers.
