Monday 11 April 2016 12:43, UK
Claudio Ranieri says Leicester City's destiny is in their own hands after their 2-0 win at Sunderland moved them to within just three wins of the Premier League title.
Leicester opened up a 10-point lead over second-placed Tottenham Hotspur - who host Manchester United later on Sunday afternoon - with just five games left of the season.
And victory over sixth-in-the-table West Ham United at the King Power Stadium next Sunday afternoon will move the Foxes to within touching distance of a first-ever Premier League crown.
"Nobody could believe this [at the start of the season], but now we are in this position, we have to fight and fight until the end," Ranieri said.
"I told my players we have everything in our hands and we have to only think about ourselves."
However, the Italian preferred to play things down by instead talking about the possibility of Leicester qualifying for next season's Champions League.
"It is there on the table, and now we have to take it," said Ranieri. "But now we have to play another good match at home against West Ham, which will be another difficult match as they play very, very well and they are dangerous.
Leicester's match-winner at the Stadium of Light was Jamie Vardy, whose second-half brace took his Premier League tally for the campaign to 21 goals, in the process making him the first Leicester player to reach that total in the top fight since Gary Lineker in 1984/85.
"It is good, he scored with his national team and now he scores with us and that is important as the goalscorer wants to score a goal," Ranieri said.
However, the Italian was also quick to praise his struggling opponents, who frustrated Leicester with a solid all-round display and even came close to earning a point but for a dreadful late miss by Jack Rodwell.
"It was a tough, tough match, very difficult," he said. "They could have drawn the match. We had the chances to close out the match, but we could not score the second. And three points was very important for us.
"We made a normal performance, but our opponent was very desperate and that is normal. And for this reason I told my players it would be a tough match. We had the opportunity to finish the match, but we made mistakes.
"We wanted to win, of course, while Sunderland were a little bit more anxious. They wanted to score, of course, but not to concede a goal. But we played normally, we wanted to score a goal.
"And in the second half I told my players to keep going as it was important to maintain a high tempo.
"Maybe slowly, slowly we read the match better and we tried to play better, but I am satisfied."
