Newcastle 0 Leicester 3: Foxes keep pace at top as Toon play second half with ten men after injury crisis – The Sun
AYOZE PEREZ stuck his fingers in his ears after scoring in front of the Gallowgate.
Only this time Newcastle fans were not smiling with the Spanish striker.
The Toon sold Perez to Leicester for £30million in the summer after he finished as their top scorer last season.
And the Foxes forward came back to haunt his old club on his first Premier League return to St James’ Park, claiming a goal and an assist to keep his side in second.
Perez, who split opinion throughout his time on Tyneside, certainly had no hesitation about celebrating his strike in front of his former fans.
After all, his fingers-in-ears gesture only began after he bagged a winner for Newcastle against Watford in November 2018 having being booed on as a sub by his own supporters.
The Geordie faithul grew to love Perez’s trademark celebration during his scoring spree at the end of last season.
But the cheers returned to jeers yesterday as Perez punished the injury-hit hosts.
After his 36th-minute opener, he teed up James Maddison to score a stunner three minutes later.
And sub Hamza Choudhury rubbed salt into the Toon Army’s wounds with his first senior goal on the ground where he is hated for injuring Matt Ritchie here in the Carabao Cup in August
It was another painful day against Leicester for Newcastle’s bruised boss Steve Bruce, who saw his side hammered 5-0 at the King Power in September.
He can consider himself unlucky for having to make all three of his subs before the start of the second half, then going down to ten men when Fabian Schar hobbled off soon after the break.
But really, the game was already over as a contest by then with Leicester, despite missing Jamie Vardy because of a tight calf, in cruise control throughout.
This victory for Brendan Rodgers’ Foxes, coming after their win at West Ham on Saturday, shows they are back on track following a three-match blip in December.
And while they are ten points leaders Liverpool, who have two games in hand, Leicester are two points better off after 21 games than when they won the title in 2016.
Newcastle, however, have now lost three games on the spin and are in danger of getting dragged back into a relegation battle, especially as they current resemble the walking wounded.
Their only big chance fell to struggling striker Joelinton after Jonjo Shelvey’s ball over the top when the game was goalless.
But the clumsy Brazilian, who looked offside, saw his shot stopped by Kasper Schmeichel after failing to gain full control of the ball, then made a mess of the rebound, heading across goal when he could have nodded into the empty net.
Joelinton has scored only once since he was signed for a club-record £40m with the money Newcastle banked for Perez.
But there is no question who the Toon would rather have leading their line – and he now plays in blue.
Perez’s goal stemmed from a suicidal pass across his own box by Florian Lejuene, which he picked up ahead of Schar.
He then cut inside the defender, staying on his feet when he could have gone down from Schar’s dangling leg, and hammered past Dubravka.
Perez was joined in his cheeky celebration by Maddison.
But the England playmaker was marking a goal of his own three minutes later.
Again the ball was given away by a tired-looking Lejeune, who has started four games in 11 games on his return from long-term injury, a run Bruce has himself admitted is endangering the player’s “welfare”.
Ricardo Pereira then played to Perez, who laid off to Maddison to unleash into the top corner with his left foot from 22 yards.
Leicester should have been three up by the break only for Iheancho’s shot from Perez’s centre to be somehow bundled away by Dubravka after Schar’s scrambled block.
However, things did get much worse for Newcastle when both their wing-backs, Jetro Willems and Javier Manquillo, were forced off injured in first-half added time.
Bruce then had to make his third and final sub when a crocked Shelvey did not return after the interval, before Schar went off with a hamstring injury.
From then on, it was a matter of how close Leicester would come to repeating the scoreline of earlier this season, as Dubravka denied Iheanacho and then Perez on the rebound.
But he could do nothing to keep out Choudhury’s sizzling strike three minutes from time, as the Foxes sub let leash from 25 yards after Wilfred Ndidi’s touch.
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