CLAUDIO RANIERI WILL give his Leicester City players a week off to recharge for their Premier League title push after their last-gasp 2-1 defeat to Arsenal on Sunday.
Leicester had their lead at the top of the table cut to two points at the Emirates Stadium as Danny Welbeck netted a late headed winner, with third-placed Tottenham the same distance behind after beating Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.
Welbeck’s winner deep into stoppage time punctured the rapidly building excitement around Leciester’s unlikely bid for glory that was bolstered by impressive triumphs against Liverpool and fourth-placed City.
Ranieri made a deal with his players that nine points from their recent run of matches would earn them some time away, with Leicester not involved in the fifth round of the FA Cup next weekend, and the Italian coach is still willing to uphold his bargain, despite the Foxes only collecting six points.
“We make a little gamble with my players and they say to me, ‘If we make nine points will you give us one week away?’,” he revealed.
“Now we make just six points but in my mind I said, ‘Okay’. I was happy with one point from City and one point today, only two points, and we achieved three.
“I said, ‘Okay, it’s the same as if you won the match. Go home and we will see you next Monday.’ They deserve it. They made a fantastic performance today.”
He added: “I don’t know where they go, Dubai maybe? They go wherever they want. [I will spend] one day in London and then I go to Rome.”
Leicester took the lead in north London through Jamie Vardy’s penalty but saw their momentum halted as Theo Walcott equalised prior to Welbeck’s winner.
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Let the black card witch-hunt begin. Lead by the masters of cynical play Tyrone, big surprise!
Donegal not happy with it neither that’s their game plan out the window
Dublin won an All Ireland with it, Mayo did it to them the year before. Nobody is innocent here, Harte’s Tyrone got 3 All Irelands by playing in the rules of the game it’s up to the rest to put it up to them as all teams play with the same rules.
are you saying dublin won a championship with cynical play?
No, I’m saying Dublin played by the rules of the sport to win, Mayo did the same to get to two All Irelands and Tyrone did it to tie for Team of the Decade. You play to win or you don’t want it badly enough Paul.
I think the black card will effect Donegal and Tyrone more beacuse they play on the edge I dont agree with the blackcard anyway as if a incident is bad enough to send a player off its a redcard
Still think, given time, it will be positive. There’ll always be mistakes made, but you can see that body checking the third man runner has already been stamped out.
It was a poor decision from Goldrick, no getting away from it.
Coldrick made a mistake – get over it! The black card is a great idea for the first 65 minutes of a match – teams will still do what it takes to get a win so I can still see lads getting dragged down, etc. Being able to replace only the first 3 black cards helps in this regard.
You shouldn’t be able to replace a black carded player in the last 5 mins.
Yeah 2 people who argued against it before it was introduced saying the same thing after it has led to confusion.. can’t wait until further controversies effect your own teams and we then have you all backing the black card and not being critical of officials or rules at all as its only a tyrone and donegal thing obviously. ..
First Mickey heart, now Peter Canavan.
they see the writing on the wall daragh the two blackcards should have been redcards