Jamie Carragher: Leicester players should hang their heads in shame

Jamie Carragher feels Leicester’s performance in a 3-1 victory over Liverpool vindicates the criticism meted out to the Foxes players in the wake of Claudio Ranieri’s sacking as manager last week.

The Italian was dismissed from his role nine months after guiding Leicester to a shock Premier League title win with the midlands club hovering above the relegation zone.

Former Liverpool and England defender Carragher said in his Daily Mail column he was “raging with the role of the players” in Ranieri’s downfall, although they responded by claiming Leicester’s first league win of 2017 on Monday night.

Afterwards Jamie Vardy said he and his team-mates have been subjected to “unfair stick” in the days since Ranieri’s exit and, while Carragher acknowledges they were in a no-win position, his opinion of them has not changed.

He told Sky Sports 1: “They were brilliant, absolutely superb. They’ve won the game by having energy, by closing people down, being horrible, being difficult to play against. That’s not about tactics, that’s not about having great players, that’s about just having something inside you.

“It is right that you’re asking those questions because it wasn’t as if we’d just seen 11 fantastic footballers. We’ve just seen a team fully committed.

“I’ve been watching football for a very, very long time and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game of football where two teams who come off the pitch and hang their heads in shame; Liverpool for how bad they were and Leicester for how good they were on the back of how poor they’ve been, just through effort and commitment.

“They’ve been battered and we’ve been a part of that (in the pre-match build-up) and that still doesn’t change it for me, what we’ve said about Leicester. In some ways it may even reinforce it, that we said they haven’t done enough for Claudio Ranieri.

“Whatever they did, they were going to get criticism for how it’s come across but from their point of view, all they should be caring about now – the owners, the manager – is staying in the Premier League and (the win) gives them a great opportunity.”