Soccer

Leicester’s Claudio Ranieri ready to throw caution to the wind

With Premier League survival now assured, Italian says his team have nothing to lose

Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez: had his penalty attempt saved by Bournemouth goalkeeper Artur Boruc. Photograph: Nigel French/PA
Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez: had his penalty attempt saved by Bournemouth goalkeeper Artur Boruc. Photograph: Nigel French/PA
Sun Jan 03 2016 - 23:00

Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri was quick to make the point that failing to score is only a problem when the chances dry up.

Besides, Leicester’s manager was too busy celebrating reaching 40 points with a 0-0 draw against Bournemouth, talking about buying his players champagne and targeting another brilliant run of results to allow any mention of firing blanks to dampen his mood.

Ranieri was throwing caution to the wind, rather than preaching it, after Leicester collected the point that, in the Italian’s eyes, guarantees another season of Premier League football and turns the rest of this campaign into a free hit.

“What do we have to lose? Nothing,” he said. “We try to make 40 points, one point more [than the first half of the season]. Forty and 39 are 79, and I’m happy.”

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While Leicester fans will be doing somersaults if they finish with that sort of haul, the short-term challenge is to start scoring again. The league’s highest scorers on Christmas Day have seen the taps run dry.

Liverpool, Manchester City and now Bournemouth have frustrated Leicester, who have gone three games without scoring for the first time in 14 months.

But Leicester, who have been the story of the season so far, are sitting in second place, two points off the top.

If the recent run highlights one thing, however, it is the level of dependency on Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, who have accounted for 28 of Leicester’s 37 Premier League goals this season and should have added to their tallies here. To put it bluntly, who scores if Vardy and Mahrez do not?

Leonardo Ullo’s most notable contribution was the miscued shot that dropped for Vardy to lash against the upright - and Shinji Okazaki, who came on as a 65th-minute substitute.

Of course, if Mahrez had dispatched his penalty kick, after Simon Francis was harshly sent off for bringing down Vardy, the debate about the goal drought would never have surfaced. Artur Boruc, however, read Mahrez’s intentions and made a fine to save to help Bournemouth, for whom Josh King and Dan Gosling both had decent first-half chances, hold on to a valuable point.