Vardy and Mahrez not dominating Pellegrini´s focus

Manuel Pellegrini has warned Manchester City that there is far more to surprise Premier League leaders Leicester City than just Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez.

Leicester lost for just the second time in the league this season at Liverpool on Saturday, but are still top of the table having taken 38 points from 18 matches.

Much of their success has been down to the form of Vardy and Mahrez, the former tops the league’s goalscoring charts with 15 while the latter is two behind the England international.

But City manager Pellegrini believes it would be foolhardy to focus all their energies into stopping the duo when the sides meet on Tuesday.

“Both of them are very good performers, but I don’t think they could do it if their team is not performing well,” Pellegrini said.

“They are important players but we must think about a lot of different things, and not just two players.”

The leaders’ 1-0 loss at Anfield allowed City, who are third, to move within three points of top spot as they battered Sunderland 4-1 at the Etihad Stadium. A win at the King Power Stadium will lift Pellegrini’s men above Leicester.

City had lost 2-1 to second-placed Arsenal in their previous outing, but Pellegrini was not concerned over the six-point gap that had opened to Leicester.

“We hope that if we repeat the performance that we did [against Sunderland] then we can beat them but it will be a very tough game,” he added.

“I think Leicester are top of the table because they deserve it. They have very good players who are in form and who are high performance.

“It was not easy for Leicester to beat Liverpool, that’s why we had confidence that when we have to play them, we can reduce the gap if we beat Sunderland.

“We did and Leicester couldn’t win, so now we have an important game to finish the first round of the fixtures.

“We have to play 63 points more, that’s why I said that in December, you never win the title.”