Leicester beat Norwich to revive Premier League promotion bid

AFP | London                                          

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Leicester reignited their bid for automatic promotion to the Premier League with a 3-1 win at home to Norwich on Monday.

Victory at the King Power Stadium meant the Foxes returned to the top of English football's second-tier Championship, if merely for a few hours before promotion rivals Ipswich and Leeds are in action later in the day.

Goals from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Stephy Mavididi and Jamie Vardy enabled Leicester to complete a comeback after Gabriel Sara's fourth goal in as many games gave Norwich the lead.

Leicester have topped the table for much of the season, but Monday's success was just their third win in eight Championship games.

Only the top two clubs at the end of the regular season are guaranteed automatic promotion to the Premier League, with Leicester now a point ahead of second-placed Ipswich and two clear of Leeds, currently in third place.

"This was important, because we are in the final part of the season," said Leicester manager Enzo Maresca.

He added: "Probably in the last six games, we won one game and it was the one we didn't deserve -- Sunderland. We lost four games, and not one of them we deserved to lose.

"At the end, we are human beings - we have emotions so when we scored the last one with Jamie, the game was finished, so we were all happy and we enjoyed the moment."

Defeat left Norwich in sixth position -- still in contention to reach the post-season play-offs that will decide which club gets the third and final promotion spot.