Sunderland off the bottom as Leicester crash again

Sunderland : Sunderland climbed off the bottom of the Premier League as Leicester City's disastrous title defence suffered another blow with a 2-1 defeat at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.

Robert Huth's own goal and a Jermain Defoe effort put Sunderland in control in the second half and Shinji Okazaki's strike came too late to prevent a fifth defeat in nine league games for Leicester.

Claudio Ranieri's side lie just two points above the bottom three, while Sunderland continued their steady improvement under David Moyes by recording a third victory in four games to move into 18th place.

Jamie Vardy's Premier League goal drought now stretches to three months on another day to forget for Leicester, who fell behind in the 64th minute thanks to the kind of misfortune to which they were largely immune en route to lifting the title in May.

From Duncan Watmore's corner, substitute Jan Kirchhoff's off target header was going nowhere until it struck Huth to find the bottom corner of Ron-Robert Zieler's net.

After Patrick van Aanholt's penalty claims were turned down when the Sunderland defender appeared to be tripped inside the area by Danny Simpson, in what was a chastening afternoon for the former Black Cats full-back, Defoe doubled the Wearsiders' advantage with 13 minutes remaining.

Watmore was again the line of supply, when his shot from a Victor Anichebe cross was blocked, as the ball fell invitingly for Defoe to fire home into the corner from close range for his eighth league goal of the season.

Leicester showed the kind of character for which they became synonymous last season as they halved the deficit two minutes later, Japan striker Okazaki stealing in at the near post ahead of Papy Djilobodji to poke home a cross from Demarai Gray.