5 classic Boxing Day Premier League fixtures of the decade

5. Leicester City 2-1 Manchester City – 2018

Leicester's win over Manchester City on Boxing Day in 2018 appeared to have dented City's title hopes

The upcoming Boxing Day fixtures will see Leicester attempting to swing the pendulum of the title race into their favour by beating league leaders Liverpool – but last season’s Christmas fixtures saw them seemingly hand the title to Jurgen Klopp’s Reds by defeating Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in an amazing match at the King Power Stadium.

Claude Puel’s Foxes surrendered 66% of possession to Guardiola’s team, but in reality the game was relatively even, with Leicester having 10 shots to City’s 11 and getting more of their attempts on target, too. Despite that, it was City who took the lead, with a typically worked goal that saw Bernardo Silva prod home following Sergio Aguero’s through-ball.

If Guardiola had expected Leicester to collapse, though, he was sadly mistaken. Just 5 minutes later, the Foxes were level through Marc Albrighton, who found himself unmarked in the box to head in a pinpoint cross from Jamie Vardy.

Both sides had chances to win the match, but after 80 minutes had gone, it appeared that we were heading for a draw – until a defensive header fell to Ricardo Pereira on the edge of the box, and the Portuguese defender smashed an unstoppable right-footed shot past Ederson to send the Foxes into the lead.

City pushed for an equaliser, but it wouldn’t come – and they also suffered the indignity of being reduced to 10 men when Fabian Delph was dismissed for a wild lunge at Pereira on 89 minutes. While City recovered from the loss to eventually win their second successive Premier League title, at the time this felt like a seismic result – one that Leicester will hope to repeat next week against Liverpool.