It was a fine first win for Leicester City manager Ruud van Nistelrooy, and perhaps one final defeat for West Ham United manager Julen Lopetegui.
Leicester marked Van Nistelrooy’s first match in charge of the team by surging to a 3-1 win over Lopetegui’s West Ham in the English Premier League on Tuesday. Van Nistelrooy, the former Manchester United striker, is back in English soccer this time as a manager, with Leicester taking something of a gamble on the Dutchman after his brief and impressive spell as interim manager at Manchester United this season following Erik ten Hag’s departure.
He faces the tough task of keeping Leicester, one of the top candidates for relegation, in the top division. For that to happen, he is likely to need goals from Jamie Vardy — and the 37-year-old former England international delivered immediately.
Photo: Reuters
Nine years after breaking Van Nistelrooy’s record for scoring in consecutive games, Vardy scored the first goal of the Dutchman’s tenure at Leicester by beating the offside trap and slotting home a finish with less than two minutes gone.
Morocco midfielder Bilal El Khannouss supplied the pass for Vardy’s goal and scored himself with a low shot in the 61st minute to make it 2-0. Patson Daka added a third for Leicester in the 90th minute, before a stoppage-time consolation by West Ham substitute Niclas Fullkrug.
“We are very happy with the new manager,” El Khannouss said of Van Nistelrooy. “He arrived two days ago, and there’s a new dynamic in the group.”
Photo: Reuters
Van Nistelrooy praised the “spirit and energy” in his team.
“The foundation for us going forward is everyone working their socks off, fighting for every inch and defending together,” he said. “We can look further then, and they did that in an unbelievable way.”
This dismal result for West Ham came three days after their 5-2 thrashing at home by Arsenal, which piled more pressure on Lopetegui early in the former Spain and Real Madrid coach’s first season with the London club.
Photo: Reuters
West Ham’s disgruntled traveling fans chanted: “You’re getting sacked in the morning” toward Lopetegui during the second half — even if his team dominated large parts of the game, but only had one goal to show from 31 shots.
“We’re very frustrated, but in the same way I can say nothing about the players — they fight until the end,” Lopetegui said. “It’s not easy to explain football some days.”
West Ham have lost seven of their 14 games so far and are in 14th place in the 20-team league, one spot above Leicester.
Crystal Palace won for just the second time in the league this season, beating relegation rivals Ipswich Town 1-0 to pull clear of the bottom three.
Jean-Philippe Mateta scored the goal in the 59th minute. Palace’s only other league victory was against Tottenham Hotspur in October.
While Ipswich stayed in next-to-last place, Palace moved three points above the relegation zone.
Much of the focus ahead of the game was on the teams’ captains, Sam Morsy of Ipswich and Marc Guehi of Palace, during another round when the Premier League was celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusion in its campaign to promote equality and diversity.
For the second straight game, Morsy chose against wearing a rainbow armband issued to the captain of each of the 20 teams in the league. He has made the decision “due to his religious beliefs,” Ipswich said.
Guehi did wear the rainbow armband, but defied Football Association (FA) rules by writing a religious message on the item. The message read: “Jesus loves you” — using a heart sign instead of the word “loves.”
During the match against Newcastle United on Saturday, Guehi wrote “I love Jesus” — and was later contacted by the FA for acting in contravention of its regulations.
Taiwan kept its hopes of advancing to the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) alive with a 9-1 victory over South Africa in a qualifier at the Taipei Dome last night, backed by solid pitching. Bouncing back from Friday’s struggles on the mound, when Taiwanese pitchers surrendered 15 runs to Spain, Team Taiwan kept the visiting team in check, allowing just one run in the bottom of the fourth inning. The win was crucial for Taiwan, as a loss would have eliminated the team from contention for the next WBC. Starting pitcher Sha Tzu-chen (沙子宸) struck out one and allowed no hits, except for
The Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) is considering reducing its pitch clock by two seconds to help players better adjust to the rules applied at the World Baseball Classic (WBC). The proposal aims to shorten the pitch timer from 25 seconds to 23 seconds with the bases empty, and from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base. Currently, the WBC mandates that pitchers deliver a pitch every 18 seconds with the bases empty and 15 seconds with runners on base. The issue was raised during a pre-season CPBL managers’ meeting on Tuesday by Rakuten Monkeys bench and batting
‘SETTING THE TONE’: Donovan Mitchell said that their determination to dominate had nothing to do with past results, but was about a potential post-season clash The Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday boosted their NBA-best record with a 142-105 romp past the New York Knicks, tightening their grip on the Eastern Conference lead with an all-around dominant display. Donovan Mitchell scored 27 points to lead six Cavs players to score in double figures, connecting on five of seven three-pointers as Cleveland drilled 19 from beyond the arc. “I think the biggest thing was just try to set the tone early,” Mitchell said, adding that the determination to dominate had nothing to do with the Knicks’ first-round playoff win over the Cavs two seasons ago and everything to do with
BELGIANS ADVANCE: Club Brugge gave Atalanta a lesson in efficiency, as Gian Piero Gasperini’s team had 29 efforts at goal, compared with seven from the visitors Seldom has a player’s sending off had such an influence on a game. AC Milan was to left rue Theo Hernandez’s second yellow card — for diving — as Feyenoord advanced to the UEFA Champions League last 16 at the former European champion’s expense with a 1-1 draw in the second leg of their playoff on Tuesday, giving the Dutch team a 2-1 win on aggregate. Bayern Munich, Club Brugge and Benfica also won their playoffs, eliminating Celtic, UEFA Europa League winner Atalanta BC and French team AS Monaco respectively. “In soccer everything changes in a second,” said Milan forward
RSS