Liverpool vs Leicester, Premier League: live score and latest updates from Anfield

Liverpool take the lead… and I think it’s an own goal off Jonny Evans!

Liverpool 1 Leicester 0

Evans is holding onto Mane, the corner comes in and Evans doesn’t even seem to know where the ball is, punting it into the back of the net off his head. 

Fofana is dominating Mane at the moment. He’s won another battle, this time easily holding him off and bouncing his way past another player to keep the ball with Leicester. 

Jota is playing really well on the right for Liverpool at the moment, he’s such a good player.

Mane takes on Fofana on the left wing and loses the battle, running the ball out for a goal kick. 

This is a good game so far. Liverpool attacking well and creating chances, Leicester holding firm and looking for Vardy over the top.

SO CLOSE JOTA! Firmino manages to sneak the ball into him on the edge of the area, Jota wants to thread in Mane but he’s offside, so shifts onto his right and fires a shot at goal. Well saved by Schmeichel.

Keita is working really hard off the ball to close down Leicester players, bursting beyond midfield to even stop Schmeichel having time in possession. 

Leicester sit behind the ball and launch a counter, with Fofana starting the move and almost getting on the end of it after a full pitch sprint from defence! Nothing comes of it in the end. 

The referee’s blowing his whistle a little too often for soft fouls for me. That’s two or three that I don’t think should have been free-kicks, altering the flow of the game.

Liverpool win the ball back quickly though, Milner finds Jones in space, he gets a return pass after sending it into the box and then fires a shot at the near post. The goalie saves well. 

Justin chases the ball all the way from his own box to the corner but while running at full speed just gives Fabinho a tiny nudge and the midfielder falls to the floor, winning a free-kick. Chance gone. 

Leicester want a penalty as Maddison hooks a ball over a defender and it appears to hit Matip’s arm. VAR has checked it already and says no deal, the replay shows Matip doesn’t know anything about it as he flicks the ball with his hand. 

Liverpool win a corner early after some quick back-to-front passing. It’s whipped to the near post, Mane is there and heads it into the side netting. Liverpool look good here.

Leicester get the game started.

I didn’t know anything about Leicester’s £30million summer signing before he joined but having seen him play a few times, am convinced he’s a superstar. He has absolutely everything that the highest level centre-backs need to dominate games and John Percy wrote this piece on him a couple of days ago:

Here’s a bit of it:

After just seven appearances under Brendan Rodgers, he seems to be a centre-back with it all: positional awareness, a fine range of passing, rapid pace, heading ability and excellent defensive decision-making skills for a player at such an embryonic stage in his career. 

Fofana has made 20 interceptions, more than any other teenager in Europe’s top five leagues this season. As Gerry Taggart, the former Leicester centre-back who has watched Fofana closely since his arrival, said this week: “I can’t find any fault in his game.”

Dan Zeqiri wrote this excellent analysis article on Leicester earlier in the month and while you wait for the game, I’d advise giving it a wee read. He’s very good:

It’s free ya know.

“Trent is only out for a game or so so we need to use all the options we have. When you have to make changes in the last line you have to adapt and experience is very important. Neco (Williams) is doing very well but it’s great to have [Milner]. 

“We did pretty well in the last few games against Leicester. From a concentration level it’s very tough.” 

Could be a 3-4-3, could also be a 4-2-3-1, could also also be a mish-mash of both depending on the phase of play. Rodgers will want Maddison to get into central attacking positions, Justin can drop back to right-back and form a three, Albrighton can go wide left to allow Maddison to move. It all works in theory.

Here are the teams. It turns out Liverpool’s ‘makeshift’ XI isn’t that bad after all…

Milner goes in at right-back, Fabinho and Matip is an absolutely very good centre-back pair. Salah misses out.

Leicester look like this:

And here it is writen out rather than in a tweet.

Well hello there, and welcome to our liveblog for Liverpool vs Leicester, a game which might maybe possibly just perhaps maybe but not really but maybe might be quite important in eventually deciding the title. Liverpool are the most likely team to win the league this season but it’s been such a weird year, they don’t have any defenders left, the momentum of last season is sort of gone… and really anyone could win it. Why not Leicester?

Brendan Rodgers almost won the title with Liverpool once before and his Leicester side are currently above them in the table. A win would create a gap of four points, which doesn’t tell us much but might give his players the confidence to go on a run. It only takes a few victories in a row to build that momentum that Liverpool rode in 2019/20 and though injuries will almost certainly take their toll on absolutely every club, harming those with smaller squads like Leicester, you just never know. 

Of course, if Liverpool win this we’re back to somewhere close to what people predicted before the first kick off in September. Spurs will stay top because of goal difference, unless anything mad happens at Anfield. What does Brendan Rodgers think about a title push?

“I haven’t even thought about it,” he said this week. “We’ve only played eight games.

“We’ve made a good start, but for us, what’s very important, and I’ve spoken to the players to bring them all back in again after international duties, is for us to continue to be really honest in our approach to games, to work as hard as we possibly can, to keep the humility we have in the group and prepare as best as we can for every game.”

Kick off is at 7:15pm, stay here for live updates and analysis throughout the match.