Vardy helps Van Nistelrooy to first win with Leicester as Guehi defies the FA with religious message

It was a fine first win for Ruud van Nistelrooy, and perhaps one final defeat for Julen Lopetegui.

Leicester marked Van Nistelrooy’s first match in charge of the team by surging to a 3-1 win over Lopetegui's West Ham in the Premier League on Tuesday.

Van Nistelrooy, the former Manchester United striker, is back in English soccer this time as a manager, with Leicester taking something of a gamble on the Dutchman after his brief and impressive spell as interim coach at United this season following Erik ten Hag's departure.

He faces the tough task of keeping Leicester, one of the top candidates for relegation, in the top division. For that to happen, he’s likely to need goals from Jamie Vardy — and the 37-year-old former England international delivered immediately.

Nine years after breaking Van Nistelrooy’s record for scoring in consecutive games, Vardy scored the first goal of the Dutchman’s tenure at Leicester by beating the offside trap and slotting home a finish with less than two minutes gone.

Morocco midfielder Bilal El Khannouss supplied the pass for Vardy’s goal and scored himself with a low shot in the 61st minute to make it 2-0. Patson Daka added a third for Leicester in the 90th minute, before a stoppage-time consolation by West Ham substitute Niclas Füllkrug.

“We are very happy with the new manager," El Khannouss said of Van Nistelrooy. “He arrived two days ago, and there’s a new dynamic in the group.”

Van Nistelrooy praised the “spirit and energy” in his team.

“The foundation for us going forward is everyone working their socks off, fighting for every inch and defending together,” he said. “We can look further then, and they did that in an unbelievable way.”

This dismal result for West Ham came three days after its 5-2 thrashing at home by Arsenal, which piled more pressure of Lopetegui early in the former Spain and Real Madrid coach's first season with the London club.

West Ham's disgruntled traveling fans chanted "You’re getting sacked in the morning” toward Lopetegui during the second half — even if his team dominated large parts of the game but only had one goal to show from 31 shots on goal.

“We're very frustrated but in the same way I can say nothing about the players — they fight until the end,” Lopetegui said. "It’s not easy to explain football some days.”

West Ham has lost seven of its 14 games so far and is in 14th place in the 20-team league, one spot above Leicester.

Guehi defies FA

Crystal Palace won for just the second time in the league this season, beating relegation rival Ipswich 1-0 to pull clear of the bottom three.

Jean-Philippe Mateta scored the goal in the 59th minute. Palace’s only other league victory was against Tottenham in October.

While Ipswich stayed in next-to-last place, Palace moved three points above the relegation zone.

Much of the focus ahead of the game was on the teams’ captains, Sam Morsy of Ipswich and Marc Guehi of Palace, during another round when the Premier League was celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusion in its campaign to promote equality and diversity.

For the second straight game, Morsy chose against wearing a rainbow armband issued to the captain of each of the 20 teams in the league. He has made the decision “due to his religious beliefs,” Ipswich says.

Guehi did wear the rainbow armband but defied Football Association rules by writing a religious message on the item. The message read “Jesus loves you” — using a heart sign instead of the word “loves.” During the match against Newcastle on Saturday, Guehi wrote “I love Jesus” — and was later contacted by the FA for acting in contravention of its regulations.

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Steve Douglas, The Associated Press