Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers hails 'historic day' after beating Aston Villa
Leicester beat Villa 4-1 in the Premier League to extend their winning league run to eight games
Monday 9 December 2019 07:01, UK
Brendan Rodgers hailed an 'historic day' for Leicester after they won they eighth successive Premier League game to break their top-flight club record.
Jamie Vardy scored twice as Leicester cruised to a 4-1 win against Aston Villa on Renault Super Sunday, cementing their grip on second place - six points ahead of Manchester City in third - and extending their impressive streak.
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The performance at Villa Park delighted Rodgers, who commended his history-breaking team while also highlighting a few areas for improvement.
"I thought they were amazing today," he told Sky Sports. "It's a real historic day for the club and I thought the performance warranted that.
"We always knew it was going to be a difficult place to come, Dean's [Smith] team have a good record at home, with the crowd and everything, they can make it really difficult, but I thought we were very good.
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"We had all types of goals today, we had a long period of possession for the second one, two counter-attacks, a set-piece and other chances. We kept going until the very end to try and score goals so it was an absolutely outstanding performance.
"The team that were in the Leicester history books [for the longest winning top-flight run] were called the 'Ice Kings' and they were a very famous team so to go on and break that record in the top flight is a real historical achievement by the players.
"But we had to work for it. It was a tough game, but I thought we had a lot of quality and played with a real hunger. With a few more quality passes in the final third we might have scored more goals, but that would have been greedy. It's a brilliant win for us and an important three points."
Smith: Manner of goals disappointing
On the other end of the spectrum, it was a torrid afternoon for Dean Smith and Aston Villa, who did pull a goal back through Jack Grealish just before half-time, but it did not inspire a comeback.
Smith told Sky Sports: "We missed some chances but you can't concede 23 shots at Villa Park and expect to win football games, especially against a team that has won seven on the spin already.
"It's the manner of the goals we've given away that disappoints me more, but we've gone toe-to-toe with them and it was end-to-end, a bit of a basketball game at times, and it's the small margins.
"The fourth goal probably epitomises us at the moment, [Ahmed] Elmohamady wins a really good header at the near post and we've got nobody going in to tap it in at the far post. It's a corner routine we've worked on and one big clearance and Jamie Vardy goes through to make it four. There are fine margins but also a lot defensively that we've got to learn.
"All in all, I could have done with that game being over after 70-odd minutes when they got their fourth because when you've got that cushion, you can start playing a bit of fancy football then and give us problems, which they did."
Souness: Leicester extremely impressive
It was not just Rodgers who was impressed with Leicester, as Sky Sports pundit Graeme Souness also commended the performance, particularly the Foxes midfield.
"They were extremely impressive," he said on Renault Super Sunday. "If you look through their team, they've got a lovely mix of different types of players, and every one of them have got their own qualities.
"I'm saying that because there was a 20 or 25-minute period at the start of the game when they had to dig in and go to war. Aston Villa were up for it and there were tackles flying in. They weathered that storm and I would suggest that Youri Tielemans, Wilfred Ndidi and James Maddison in midfield are as good as anyone out there.
"The blend of them, the hard work, the clever passing from Ndidi and Tielemans, and in Maddison, I think he's a real craftsman. He should be a regular in the England team. He's got the ability to deliver cute and clever passes and he puts a shift in.
"Vardy up front just wants to run forward all the time and I would suggest that in this team, more than the one who won the league, he knows that when he runs forward, he has a better chance of getting on the end of something because he has better kickers of the ball playing with him now."
