Claudio Ranieri shed tears of joy in the April sunshine as his Leicester City team closed in on the Premier League title with a 2-0 win against Sunderland. But second-placed Tottenham Hotspur showed they will not give up on their own dreams of the trophy by responding with a 3-0 hammering of Manchester United at White Hart Lane. At the end of another dramatic day, the gap at the top still stood at seven points, with five matches to play.
After Jamie Vardy ended his recent mini goal-drought by scoring Leicester’s second-half goals against Sunderland, Ranieri was visibly emotional on the pitch as he applauded the travelling fans. Vardy’s 20th and 21st league goals of the season had his manager struggling to not only contain but also explain his emotions. “It’s difficult to say how I feel inside but I’m not complaining,” the Italian said. Leicester’s win means they need only nine points to secure a first top-flight title.
Spurs swept to victory against a United team that barely threatened as an attacking force with three goals in six minutes in the second half. Dele Alli broke the deadlock before Toby Alderweireld and Érik Lamela turned the screw on United to severely dent their chances of a top-four finish. Louis van Gaal’s team are four points behind fourth-placed Manchester City with six games remaining. Van Gaal insisted that there was time for things to turn around for his team.
Ranieri said that he had given Vardy a pep talk at the interval, when the score was 0-0 and Sunderland had impressed. “At half-time, I talked to him,” he said. “I said: ‘Come on Jamie, we need you … I need you.’ And he spoke.”
Forty-five minutes later, Vardy not only had his goals but Leicester had recorded a fifth successive victory and fifth consecutive clean sheet. “We got three points in a difficult, anxious match,” Ranieri said. “Sunderland are very, very difficult to play against.”
Ranieri will not be deviating from the “one game at a time” mantra which, to date, has served Leicester so well. But he dedicated the win to Leicester’s travelling support. “It is fantastic when you see before the match, an old lady with a Leicester shirt outside the stadium. I say: ‘Unbelievable. They come from Leicester to support us.’ This is my emotion. It is fantastic. I was on the bus. I saw them, unbelievable, and I want to say thank you for the support. They are dreaming and we want to continue to dream.
“To do this we must stay concentrated. This is an amazing season for us, for our fans, for our chairman, for me, for everyone. Our goal was to be safe. Next I said Europa League and it is there. Now we have the Champions League and we are very close to it. Come on, keep going. It is not a big day yet. We have the Champions League on the table but now we have to keep it, nothing more.
“Other people can continue to talk about the title. It is important we stay focused on the next match. I said this to the players. We won today but now we have two matches at home, the first against West Ham United, a very difficult match because they are a fantastic team with good players. And then, after that, it is Swansea, another very difficult match. We must stay focused.”
Mauricio Pochettino could enjoy a first Tottenham home win against United since 2001 after a battling and, eventually, fluent second-half performance. The Spurs manager admitted it had been hard to hear about Leicester’s win from earlier in the day, “because always you expect a different result,” but he was delighted at the character that his players showed.
“After the Leicester game, it was important for us to show character, personality and maturity,” Pochettino said. “I think we moved one step forward. It was an experience for this young squad to play with pressure and try to reduce the gap. I am double pleased, and very happy.
“We sent a message that we are there, waiting and fighting. If Leicester fail, we need to stay there. It’s true that seven points is a difficult gap to reduce, but we need to believe. And the performance and result like today showed that this team believes. What happens in the end, we will see. But it is important to keep this mentality.”
