Leicester 0 Wolves 3: Danny Ward blunders hand Vitor Pereira early Christmas present as new boss gets huge win
LEICESTER CITY owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha spread some Festive cheer by dishing out cuddly Foxes and City scarves to fans before kick-off.
Then watched through his fingers as his team gifted Wolves three slapstick first-half goals to give new boss Vitor Pereira an early Christmas present.
Pereira pocketed three welcome points on his debut while poor Danny Ward suffered in a Winter Blunderland!
Foxes fans groaned when they heard his name announced BEFORE kick-off as it became clear first-choice Mads Hermansen had failed to shrug off a groin injury.
At 2-0 down they booed their own goalie – then sarcastically cheered him when he safely gathered a bread and butter through ball!
By the time Wolves helped themselves to a third the poor guy was in bits and looked as if he had Poppadom wrists as he got both gloves to Matheus Cunha’s shot but couldn’t keep it out!
As the goals flowed Vitor Pereira was the calmest man at the King Power.
He just stood in his Technical Area, arms folded, before taking more notes in his notepad.
Perhaps he was compiling his Christmas shopping list because the Portuguese coach couldn’t have asked for an easier start to life in the Premier League than this walkover.
Pereira has now won nine of his 11 debuts as a boss.
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Leicester imploded as they handed out their first gift of the day after 19 minutes to get Wolves off to the perfect start under their new gaffer.
New skipper Nelson Semedo swept a long pass out of defence, Jorgen Strand Larsen blocked off Jannick Vestergaard way too easily and the ball ran through to Goncalo Guedes.
He reacted way quicker than Conor Coady who allowed him to hook the ball home from the corner of the six yard box, under the gloves of Ward.
As the Foxes defence looked around to see who they could blame there didn’t seem to be any shortage of contenders.
But they failed to learn their lesson and surrendered an even softer goal nine minutes before the break.
Matt Doherty played a raking diagonal ball from right to left.
James Justin appeared to have the situation under control until he inexplicably chose to leave the ball.
Unless he got a rogue call from Ward, it was a suicidal bit of defending, because lurking off his right shoulder Rodrigo Gomes was waiting to cash in.
He took the ball down on his chest then bundled the ball beyond Danny Ward who had already over-committed and actually dived out of the way for Gomes to find the gaping net.
There was a VAR check for a potential handball but VAR Michael Salisbury decided the Wolves man had taken the ball down cleanly.
It was the 21-year-old’s first goal in English football following his summer arrival from Braga.
The look of horror mixed with stunned bewilderment on Ruud van Nistelrooy’s face said it all.
But his defenders weren’t done yet because they leaked a third before Wolves headed off for their half-time cuppa.
Semedo set the ball rolling again when he picked out Guedes who had run behind Victor Kristiansen who looked as if he was towing a caravan.
He fed Cunha who had left Boubakary Soumare for dead and once again Vestergaard was slow to cut out the danger.
Cunha simply swept the ball in off Danny Ward’s limp wrists to clock up his ninth goal of the season.
RVN sent out an SOS and sent on Wout Faes and Harry Winks for Vestergaard and Skipp at half-time.
Hamza Choudhury and Bobby De Cordova-Reid followed them on eight minutes later but the match was already over.
Coming hard-on-the-heels of a 4-0 hammering by Newcastle, this is not a good couple of weeks for Leicester.
At one point in the second half Soumare actually had the ball at his feet, then trod on it under no pressure at all, to set off another Wolves raid!
Yes, Leicester really were that bad.
Van Nistelrooy will have his work cut out unless ‘Top’ starts dishing out a few January presents in the shape of a couple of battle-hardened Premier League defenders in January.
As always Jamie Vardy did his best up front.
The veteran striker almost got the Foxes off to a flier at the start when he raced onto a through ball but his shot was blocked by Jose Sa, who had raced yards outside his box.
But the Portuguese keeper somehow managed to keep his hands off the ball and cleared with his chest.
Then with the game long gone, Vardy rounded Sa but shot into the side net from a tight angle, before flashing in a header from an Ayew free kick which Sa saved.
Meanwhile Wolves fans partied and serenaded their unpopular Chairman Jeff Shi.
They sang: “I don’t care about Jeff Shi. He don’t care about me. All I care about is Wolves FC.”
Then rubbed salt in Leicester wounds by chanting: “We want our ball back,” after a period of home possession.
Tellingly, Leicester’s loudest roar of the day came five minutes from the end as Danny Ward held a Joao Gomes shot to a prolonged roar from home fans who had long since lost their Christmas cheer!