Ruud van Nistelrooy savoured “a day to get pleasure from” after Leicester Metropolis ended their nine-game shedding streak on house soil with victory over Southampton.
The Foxes got here out on high within the battle of the relegated sides on the King Energy Stadium, with first-half objectives from Jamie Vardy and Jordan Ayew sealing a 2-0 win.
Vardy opened the scoring within the seventeenth minute along with his 199th objective for Leicester, who he’ll go away on the finish of the season, and their first on house soil in 826 minutes.
Certainly, the Foxes had gone an English top-flight file of 9 successive house league matches with out scoring, whereas Ayew secured all three factors simply earlier than the break.
And Van Nistelrooy was happy to expertise a day of “a number of positives”, on which youngsters Michael Golding, Jake Evans and Jeremy Monga have been launched from the bench afterward.
“It’s good to really feel this once more,” Van Nistelrooy mentioned. “We knew the quantity of house video games by which we didn’t rating or win. We wished to interrupt that cycle, and it was clear it needed to be at present.
“The one to interrupt that cycle clearly needed to be Jamie with an amazing left-foot end.
“A number of positives with the consequence, the clear sheet, the younger lads approaching. It’s a day to get pleasure from and that’s what we’re doing.”
“Soccer is all about confidence,” Bilal El Khannouss continued. “From the second you rating, we’ve good gamers on this group, the arrogance can go greater and we confirmed ourselves.
“[We want] to finish [the season] in a optimistic method, to take as many factors as attainable, and to organize for subsequent season.”
On Vardy, he added: “At this time, he scored one, and I’ll assist him to the top [of the season] to attain one other one. He’s a legend for the membership.”
Three factors on Filbert Means#LEISOU pic.twitter.com/MG2taashO4
— Leicester Metropolis (@LCFC) Might 3, 2025
In the meantime, one other defeat for Southampton ensured they may end backside of the Premier League for a joint-record third time of their historical past (stage with Sunderland), additionally doing so in 2004-05 and 2022-23.
The Saints’ goal will now be to register a degree of their final three video games to keep away from matching Derby County’s record-low tally of 11 factors in 2007-08.
“We began nicely within the sport, and we have been dissatisfied with the style of the [first] objective,” interim boss Simon Rusk mentioned. “It gave them life and, ultimately, they have been worthy of the win.
“We’re backside of the league, and it’s been a very troublesome season. We’re missing confidence and there’s solely a lot you are able to do for confidence actually.
“We now have to maintain going. We didn’t surrender. We’re hoping for that one objective that will get us again in it, but it surely by no means got here.
“I’ve inherited seven video games in troublesome circumstances, and I can solely take it one sport at a time. Hopefully, we decide one thing up in these final three video games.”