Watford 1-5 Leicester: Brendan Rodgers’ side pile more misery on relegated Hornets

For Leicester, a second successive victory to leave them wondering what might have been.

For woeful Watford, another occasion which has left them desperately wishing for it all to end.

There were indications from both sides in some of their defending as to why they met on the penultimate weekend of the season with little to play for.

Joao Pedro opened the scoring with a low strike from close range after just six minutes 

James Maddison guided the ball into an empty net from Youri Tieleman’s pull back 

At least when Leicester have Jamie Vardy, James Maddison and Harvey Barnes all linking up, they can mask the Foxes frailties, as they did here after Leicester shipped from a set-piece again.

Vardy and Barnes scored twice each, Maddison scored the other and set up a goal for each of his team-mates in a ruthless Leicester fightback.

Leicester can finish no higher than eighth but, now Vardy is back and has scored four in the week, it is impossible not to ponder how different things may have panned out had they not been without their talisman for two big chunks due to knee and hamstring problems, their biggest injury miss in a season full of them.

‘It’s been a frustration, disappointment over the over the course of the season,’ Brendan Rodgers said.

‘Too often a lot of our better players haven’t been available. And we can’t carry another team of big quality behind the players we lose.’

Rodgers described Vardy as ‘absolutely incredible’ and Roy Hodgson, who worked with him as England manager, said: ‘The worst thing with Jamie is his runs are good and he scores the goal when he gets there. He doesn’t miss which some players will.

‘I joked with him “you’ve missed a large part of this season but now you’ll have another year or two at the end of your career as you’ve not played the games this year.”

Jamie Vardy headed the ball into an empty net as Ben Foster came off his line 22 minutes in 

Harvey Barnes then got on the scoresheet 22 seconds into the second half at Vicarage Road

Inspired by Vardy, Leicester took full advantage of some lamentable defending from Watford and it was hard to argue with goalkeeper Ben Foster’s scathing assessment.

‘I don’t think a manager in the world could have saved us,’ he said.

‘It was the antithesis of the performance we were hoping for,’ Hodgson added.

The final whistle was greeted by jeers from the half full crowd who decided to stick around for the players’ lap of appreciation following their final home game of the season.

Vardy got his second of the day with a composed finish 20 minutes from time  

Barnes side-footed the ball past Foster for his second of the day after 86 minutes 

Roy Hodgson chose not to join it, insisting that is for the players and doubting whether the supporters would want to show any gratitude to him and his No 2 Ray Lewington having been unable to keep Watford up.

Their hopes of producing an encouraging performance for watching new manager Rob Edwards quickly disappeared after Joao Pedro’s early opener.

Disastrous defending preceded Maddison’s equaliser and Vardy’s first. From Watford’s kick-off Barnes scored Leicester’s third 17 seconds after the restart.

Watford gave the Foxes all the time in the world to score their fourth and fifth, through Vardy and then Barnes.

Rodgers added: ‘We wanted to keep fighting to finish well and put a marker down for next year. We really showed our spirit, played some great football with real attacking verve.

‘We didn’t want to go out with a whimper. A top 10 finish, European semi-final is still a really good season for Leicester.’