Ruud van Nistelrooy hailed Jamie Vardy’s brilliance to set up Leicester City’s last-gasp equaliser against Brighton – with the manager unsure he’d have shown the same selflessness.
Vardy gave City a lifeline with an 86th-minute finish and then produced another moment of class to assist Bobby De Cordova-Reid’s injury-time equaliser. Staring down Brighton keeper Bart Verbruggen, Vardy could have gone for goal, but instead showed his awareness to set up the tap-in.
Van Nistelrooy, a ruthless goal-getter in his heyday, could not be certain he would have taken the same option as Vardy. But it’s another sign of the City skipper’s quality, and of the team’s performance to get the number nine into those dangerous positions.
“That was a brilliant moment,” van Nistelrooy said. “So late in the game, the 91st minute, when you have the calmness and the composure to decide on these things, that’s absolutely top class and we’re happy we have that in our team.
“If you don’t pass, you have to score. He made sure we were going to get that equaliser. I think he felt we deserved that. If I would have passed it? I don’t know, I’ll have to look back at the goal.
“But the performance of the whole team put him in position. If I relive the second goal, where we were pressing high, we won the duel, and played forward from there, and we went for goal from the turnover. That’s where the ball ended up with Jamie.
“I liked that. I enjoyed that, the whole sequence. That’s why, as a team, we put him in the position there, and that’s where we want to put players who can make the difference for us.”
The late leveller means it’s four points from two matches in the Dutchman’s first week in charge. Van Nistelrooy felt the performance on Sunday was better than the one that earned three points against West Ham.
He said: “We were realistic after the West Ham game. We were very effective in scoring three goals but we let West Ham in way too much. We acknowledged it. Today the performance was way better than Tuesday, in that sense.
“We controlled the game and put a lot of pressure on Brighton, who are one of the best footballing sides in this league. That’s a compliment to the team.
“We didn’t give a lot of chances away and scored another two goals. We got only one point today, with a better performance than Tuesday, but it’s a silly old game, isn’t it?”
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