Leicester City are well and truly back to believing they can avoid relegation to the Championship after a huge win against Tottenham Hotspur.
The Foxes’ resolve was tested once again as they fell behind in the first half to Richarlison’s close-range finish but came out fighting as Jamie Vardy’s equaliser was followed by a hilarious celebration.
Unlikely hero Bobby De Cordova-Reid starred in the game as he provided two assists in the game and laid off the winner for Bilal El Khannouss.
There is still work to do with Leicester worse off now than they were in 2023 at the same stage when they were last relegated.
Three points against an out-of-form Tottenham was never a foregone conclusion and during the analysis on Match of the Day 2, the pundits picked out one area that Leicester targeted when beating Spurs.
Leicester capitalised on Tottenham midfield mistakes
After the important win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, BBC pundits Shay Given and Thomas Hitzlsperger analysed where the game was won for Leicester.
Spurs have struggled with injuries but were able to name a midfield three of Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Sarr and Lucas Bergvall but were second best in the middle of the park.
Looking back at the game, Hitzlsperger feels it was an area of the pitch Ruud van Nistelrooy picked out that his team could exploit.
He said: “Coming here to Tottenham, they knew what was going on and they looked the more confident side.
“I think they identified the centre of midfield as an area where they could win the game.
“They continued that way too. You’ve got the three players in midfield and it was so wide open that when Leicester attacked nobody was there on the edge of the box to pick [Jordan Ayew] him up.
“It was clever from Ruud van Nistelrooy.”
Ruud van Nistelrooy knows Leicester can still improve
Before kick-off on Sunday it appeared that the Foxes were in a never-ending crisis.
Talk of Van Nistelrooy quitting emerged hours before the start of the game and just two days after rumours of dressing room unrest at Leicester.
That all being said it was a remarkable team performance that displayed unity amongst the ranks but the Dutchman knows that the conversations won’t go away overnight.
“No, it (talk of a crisis) is not going to disappear all of a sudden with a win,” he said.
“We are a football team. We are focused on getting better on the training pitch, doing our jobs, playing at the weekends and doing the best we can to be able to achieve our right to play in this league, which will be very tough as a promoted side, as I emphasised before.
We’re not putting any energy in all the noise around us. A loss or a draw or a win will not change the environment. On the 25th of May, we want to be somewhere and that’s what we’re working for