The Nigerian international played his part to the delight of his manager as Leicester City came from behind to secure a 2-1 victory over Burnley thanks to goals from Vardy and Tielemans
It was 1-1 at the break, after Wood put the Clarets ahead early on, but Vardy equalised just before the break. Leicester pushed hard in the second half for a winning goal and they finally got their reward on 74 minutes, as Tielemans smashed the ball into the back of the net past Pope.
Burnley thought they had equalised, as Evans put the ball in the back of his own net, whilst trying to stop Wood. However, the centre-back went down under pressure from Wood and VAR ruled that he had been tripped and therefore ruled the goal out.
Wilfred Ndidi shone bright in the encounter, making the most interceptions (5) at the King Power Stadium. The midfield general was also the third-best tackler for the hosts with three tackles, behind Ricardo Pereira (6) and Caglar Soyuncu (5).
However, speaking to BBC Match of the Day as monitored by Soccernet.ng, Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers had kind words for James Maddison while revealing he had little qualms accepting the controversial decision of VAR.
“My feeling on VAR is always it will either go for or against you. At Liverpool VAR went against us and cost us. From Sean’s [Dyche] point of view it will be harsh. There’s an angle where you can see he clips Jonny Evans – the officials have time to asses from every angle and they decided it was a goal,” Rodgers said.
“We will take it. I wont argue against guys who have sat and analysed it. Away at Liverpool we conceded a penalty that wasn’t a penalty and I wasn’t crying about it after wards.
“Unfortunately it’s something you accept as part of the game. I’m proud of how we won the game today – a tough game, an emotional game. We were much more aggressive in the second half – we showed great quality and a great mentality to get the three points.”
On James Maddison’s perfromance: “He did so well to last as long as he did because he has hardly trained the last few weeks. For him to last the time he did and be that effective was great. He put himself out there for the team.”
On the tributes to Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha: “We were keen to make it a celebration. The supporters were incredible. We needed to tap into that emotion, we didn’t in the first half but we were much more aggressive after half time. Today they made him [Vichai] proud in fighting for the result.”
