By Canadian Press

Rodgers watches on as new team Leicester ends winless run

Feb 26, 2019 | 4:07 PM

Just a few minutes after being hired as Leicester’s manager, Brendan Rodgers took a seat in the stands at King Power Stadium to have a first good look at his new team.

He must have been fairly satisfied with what he saw.

Leicester ended a winless run stretching back to Jan. 1 by beating Brighton 2-1 in the Premier League on Tuesday, its players perhaps motivated by impressing their new coach following his arrival from Scottish club Celtic.

With Leicester moving 11 points clear of the bottom three, it is unlikely that Rodgers will be fighting a relegation battle in the final three months of the season.

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Instead, when his tenure starts for good on Wednesday, his task will be to get a talented group of players back of track after losing their way under predecessor Claude Puel in recent months. Maybe even getting the team challenging the heavyweights of the league again — like they did in famously winning the title at preseason odds of 5,000-1 in 2015-16.

The prolific output of Jamie Vardy was integral that season and the striker showed Rodgers he still has an eye for goal by scoring what proved to be the winner, taking a pass from James Maddison in his stride and shooting low into the net in the 63rd minute.

That made it 2-0 after Demarai Gray’s 10th-minute strike, and Brighton’s only reply was through Davy Propper in the 66th — even though the visitors had plenty of chances in an open game.

The result meant Leicester avoided a fifth straight home league loss, which last happened in 1959.

In other matches at the start of the 28th round in the Premier League, Gylfi Sigurdsson scored twice in Everton’s 3-0 win at Cardiff, which stayed only one point above the relegation zone.

Newcastle pushed further away from the drop zone with a 2-0 home win over Burnley, and last-place Huddersfield collected only its third victory of the season by beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 thanks to an injury-time goal from Steve Mounie.

It could be too late for Huddersfield, though, with the team still 11 points adrift of safety.

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More AP English soccer: https://apnews.com/PremierLeague and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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Steve Douglas is at www.twitter.com/sdouglas80

Steve Douglas, The Associated Press