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LONDON:
Leicester reignited their bid for automatic promotion to the Premier League with a 3-1 win at home to Norwich on Monday.
Victory at the King Power Stadium meant the Foxes returned to the top of English football’s second-tier Championship, if merely for a few hours before promotion rivals Ipswich and Leeds are in action later in the day.
Goals from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Stephy Mavididi and Jamie Vardy enabled Leicester to complete a comeback after Gabriel Sara’s fourth goal in as many games gave Norwich the lead.
Leicester have topped the table for much of the season, but Monday’s success was just their third win in eight Championship games.
Only the top two clubs at the end of the regular season are guaranteed automatic promotion to the Premier League, with Leicester now a point ahead of second-placed Ipswich and two clear of Leeds, currently in third place.
“This was important, because we are in the final part of the season,” said Leicester manager Enzo Maresca.
He added: “Probably in the last six games, we won one game and it was the one we didn’t deserve — Sunderland. We lost four games, and not one of them we deserved to lose.
“At the end, we are human beings – we have emotions so when we scored the last one with Jamie, the game was finished, so we were all happy and we enjoyed the moment.”
Defeat left Norwich in sixth position — still in contention to reach the post-season play-offs that will decide which club gets the third and final promotion spot.
Liam Kitching scored two own goals as Coventry lost ground in the race for a play-off place following a 2-1 home defeat by Cardiff.
West Brom extended their unbeaten run to eight games by coming from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Watford.
The Hornets led through goals from Edo Kayembe and substitute Mileta Rajovic, but Brandon Thomas-Asante brought the Baggies back into the game before Darnell Furlong snatched a point at the death.
Ellis Simms’ 17th goal of the season gave the Sky Blues a 22nd-minute lead but Kitching twice put through his own net, the first of them in stunning style.
At the other end of the table, Rotherham staved off relegation for at least another week with a 2-1 win over Millwall.
This was just Rotherham’s fourth league win of the season, with the Millers scoring twice in the last 20 minutes.
Seb Revan put them ahead in the 71st minute before Ryan Longman equalised for Millwall. But four minutes from time, on-loan striker Charlie Wyke headed in a winner for Rotherham.
Birmingham moved two points clear of the relegation zone with a 1-0 win over play-off hopefuls Preston, Jay Stansfield scoring the only goal of the game.
Blackburn won for the first time in 10 league games with a crushing 5-1 win at Sunderland where Sammie Szmodics scored twice to take his tally for the season to 23 goals.
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