Vardy and Pérez hat-tricks see Leicester smash nine against Southampton

By the time Jamie Vardy stepped up from 12 yards to add Leicester City’s ninth and put the final nail in Southampton’s coffin, the pocket of delirious travelling supporters, well on their way to revelling in a giddying record-breaking away win, were sarcastically singing for the goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel to take aim from the penalty spot. The only other time a team won by such a margin in the Premier League 24 years ago, another Schmeichel was on the winning side for Manchester United. Leicester fans toasted Vardy’s hat-trick by feverishly waving white scarves bearing the name of their late owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, whose death was a year ago on Sunday, but Saints had long since raised the white flag on a deeply sobering evening.

For Leicester, passage to the record books came after breezing to the biggest victory by an away team in the 131-year history of the English top flight and to second in the table. This victory takes them to 20 points from 10 games, one more than their total at this stage when they went on to win the league against all odds.

For Southampton, who had Ryan Bertrand sent off 12 minutes into this non-event, this was an ordeal from start to finish. The visitors shot Saints to pieces, with Ayoze Pérez also helping himself to a hat-trick to celebrate his first goals in a Leicester shirt as Brendan Rodgers’s boisterous side cantered to an embarrassing rout that laid bare his side’s top-six credentials while exposing familiar flaws in the Southampton defence. By the time James Maddison curled a sweet free-kick beyond Angus Gunn for Leicester’s eighth, Ben Chilwell and Youri Tielemans, both of whom were irresistible throughout, had inflicted lasting damage. As Rodgers said, the relentless Harvey Barnes was unfortunate not to get on the scoresheet.

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