Leicester survive late scare against Swansea to secure first win of season

The thunder and lightning were relentless and so were Leicester City for the majority of the game, as the Premier League champions got their title defence up and running with a victory that was far more convincing than the scoreline suggests. Jamie Vardy registered his first goal of the season and Wes Morgan scored the second against a Swansea side that seemed resigned to defeat until Leroy Fer’s late header gave them a flicker of hope where there should have been none.

Leicester ought to have been out of sight by the time Fer powerfully headed home in the 80th minute after a rare Swansea attack. Riyad Mahrez squandered a chance to put the game to bed shortly before the hour mark, however, with a poor penalty kick that Lukasz Fabianski saved, and it was a moment that Leicester were almost left to regret when Fer’s goal encouraged Swansea to push for an unlikely equaliser.

It was a strange ending to a game that finished in farcical conditions, with the incessant rain causing the ball to get stuck in puddles of water on a surface that was close to unplayable come the final five minutes. Yet Leicester weathered the late storm in more ways than one to hold on for Claudio Ranieri’s 100th Premier League win and an important three points before the international break.

Any other outcome would have been an injustice, such was Leicester’s dominance – in particular in the opening 45 minutes. Vardy’s pace troubled Swansea throughout, Danny Drinkwater was excellent in central midfield – those two combined for the opening goal in a rerun of a move seen so many times last season – and Daniel Amartey, who had the monumental task of filling N’Golo Kanté’s boots, was full of energy and used the ball intelligently.

Ranieri was pleased to see Vardy on the scoresheet and also encouraged by a performance that was much more like the Leicester of last season. “Of course it’s important for strikers to score because it’s their life,” Leicester’s manager said. “I think the first half was outstanding for us but we have to score one more goal. The second half was also good. But after we missed a penalty maybe the opponent got more confident and we complicated life a little. It was tough. The rain was unbelievable. It was water polo. But three points is good – a first victory. So I am very, very happy.”

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Francesco Guidolin, the Italian in the opposite dugout, had nothing to smile about. Swansea were woeful for much of the match and on another day could have been on the end of a hiding. They looked vulnerable at the back, where Federico Fernández and Jordi Amat were an accident waiting to happen, were overrun in midfield and almost nonexistent as an attacking force until the final 10 minutes. Fernando Llorente looked an isolated and peripheral figure up front.

The fixture list does not exactly give much cause for optimism going forward. Swansea’s next five matches in the league see them host Chelsea, travel to Southampton, take on Manchester City at home and face Liverpool and Arsenal away. There will need to be a significant improvement to pick up points from that run and Borja Baston, the £15.5m club-record signing, could do with hitting the ground running when he recovers from injury.

Vardy’s opening goal had been on the cards for some time. The move started with some neat one-touch passing deep inside the Leicester half involving Drinkwater, Amartey and Mahrez. It was Mahrez’s cushioned header that found Drinkwater and there was only one thing in the midfielder’s mind when he looked up and saw the Swansea defence playing a high line. The through ball was executed perfectly, Vardy outpaced Amat and hammered a right-footed shot in off the near upright.

Morgan doubled Leicester’s lead with a goal that was nothing like as refined but just as effective. Marc Albrighton’s corner was never dealt with by Swansea’s defence as Fer and Fernández challenged Robert Huth and Morgan. The ball came off Huth, rolled over Morgan’s shoulder and the Leicester captain thrashed a volley from the edge of the six-yard box past Fabianski.

With Swansea in disarray, Mahrez should have made it 3-0 four minutes later when Amat brought down Shinji Okazaki in the area, but the Algerian telegraphed his intentions and hit a weak penalty that Fabianski saved low to his right. It was a reprieve for Swansea and one that they took advantage of later in the game when Fer, climbing above Morgan, headed beyond Ron-Robert Zieler, who had replaced Kasper Schmeichel in goal after the Leicester keeper left the field with a hernia problem.

Swansea, however, ultimately got what they deserved. “The result was a fair one, they played better than us,” Guidolin said. “In the first-half they played very, very well, they are strong like last season – good football with intensity. We prepared another kind of game, we didn’t play well.”