Jurgen Klopp admits Liverpool have work to do after loss at Leicester

Vardy scored the hosts’ first league goal of 2017, ending a 637-minute drought, and believes the victory proved a point for the players.

If you’ve been living under a rock for a week, you might have missed Claudio Ranieri’s sacking as Leicester City manager.

Leicester, meanwhile, opted to stick with the XI that suffered a narrow defeat to Sevilla in the Champions League last week.

With Jordan Henderson sidelined through a foot injury, Klopp made just one enforced change to his line-up, with Emre Can replacing the captain.

From the very start, the Foxes came out with an intensity that has been sorely lacking in the season so far – before the Liverpool game, Leicester had failed to score a single goal in the Premier League in 2017.

No wonder Craig Shakespeare was delighted afterwards. Shinji Okazaki forced Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet into an early diving save. Ultimately for Leicester, and any team that has recently been promoted, staying up is the number one priority as the financial benefits are huge compared to playing in the Championship.

Coutinho had an effort from outside the box saved in the 54 minute and Mane shot wide a few minutes later and the reds were starting to knock the ball around well now.

Leicester’s energy and confidence, that they lacked so badly under Ranieri, meant a breakthrough seemed inevitable.

But the old guard responded, which surely would have left Ranieri wondering where that commitment had been following just five previous league wins this term.

Eight minutes later, Vardy slid a fine finish past Mignolet and inside the near post to put Leicester ahead.

Liverpool hardly looked like a team that has had 16 days off to train and rest up.

Liverpool would have gone third with victory, but they remain in fifth place and now trail leaders Chelsea by 14 points. Liverpool for how bad they were.

Lallana sold out to Christian Fuchs’ feigned cross with a jumping block effort, and the Austrian could take his time to pick out Vardy, who had snuck in front of Can to head home easily.

Jamie Vardy scored his second goal of the match in the 60th minute.

Can had cries for a penalty go unanswered from referee Michael Oliver after Ndidi’s clumsy aerial challenge before substitute Divock Origi fired wide as Liverpool continued to toil.

Leicester players have faced criticism since Ranieri’s axing, with many media publications reporting senior Foxes were behind the Italian’s dismissal.

Those fears only increased when Leicester dropped into the bottom three after Crystal Palace won during the weekend, and while Ranieri was let go to give the Foxes the best chances of staving off relegation, it will be interesting to see if that ends up being the right decision or not.