Leicester now sit at the top of the English Premier League with 50 points from 24 games and are three points ahead of second placed Manchester City.
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The striker netted twice – including a goal-of-the-season contender 30-yard volley – in Tuesday’s 2-0 win over Liverpool, which kept the Foxes top of the Barclays Premier League.
The new deal will keep the player at King Power Stadium until the summer of 2019. Now it is one month more or less since he restarted training.
In matches at Etihad Stadium it is even easier for managers to go into their shell, and to focus on “protecting”, but that is not the attitude that has taken Leicester to the summit. It is not easy.
He said: “How Riyad Mahrez passed the ball to Vardy, and Vardy had the time to look at the goalkeeper and see him out of the goal and score?”
Jermain Defoe of Sunderland is another who is up for the award, he has scored some crucial goals for the Wearsiders in January but still his side remain in a relegation scrap.
Liverpool had another excellent chance at the start of the second half with James Milner combining with Jordan Henderson, before Can fired a powerful shot just wide.
Ranieri broke into laughter when quizzed on whether he has said anything to his players about challenging for the title – “You want to know if I told something to my players?” “After Christmas we were a little exhausted but now they’re getting better”. But from now, to the end, there will only be tough matches.
“For me it’s important to see my players fight and try to win”.
“I don’t know what happens in the future, but to our own fans we can give a fantastic gift”. We’re three points behind Leicester with not a bad goal difference compared to them. Our problem today was not to run more or to run more intensively, our problem was when we had the ball in the right position we made the wrong decision.
This season alone Windass has managed 25 appearances for John Coleman’s side, scoring 11 goals and assisting another six.
“He has his momentum”, Van Gaal said about Rooney, “but also the team is now playing more for him, I think”.
“If we could have played with the same intensity as them, they would have done something wrong”.
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Tottenham, level on points with Arsenal in third two points further back, host Watford while the Gunners travel to Bournemouth on Sunday, desperate to get back to winning ways after a defeat and draw in their past two games.
