Crystal Palace score away from home at last to beat Leicester

Benteke, Wilfried Zaha and Sako among the goals as Palace move out of bottom three

Christian Benteke of Crystal Palace celebrates after scoring at The King Power Stadium. Photograph: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images
Christian Benteke of Crystal Palace celebrates after scoring at The King Power Stadium. Photograph: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

Leicester City 0 Crystal Palace 3

Christian Benteke put a difficult week behind him to score his first goal of the season as Crystal Palace won 3-0 at Leicester City to climb out of the Premier League's bottom three on Saturday.

Wilfried Zaha and Bakary Sako were also on target as Palace ended an eight-month wait for an away league victory.

A week after being castigated for ignoring team orders to take, and miss, a stoppage-time penalty in a 2-2 draw with Bournemouth, Benteke made amends to put Palace in front with a glancing header from Andros Townsend’s whipped in cross.

READ SOME MORE

It was Palace’s first away goal of the season.

Leicester failed to muster much of a response and were punished for their lacklustre approach five minutes before halftime when Benteke played in Zaha who out-foxed Ben Chilwell before drilling a low shot past Kasper Schmeichel.

The hosts did improve after the break and Riyad Mahrez was denied a goal when Palace keeper Julian Speroni made a superb save to keep out the Algerian's powerful low shot.

Vicente Iborra had a headed goal correctly ruled out for a push on the hour and Leicester suffered a further blow a minute later when birthday boy Wilfred Ndidi received a second yellow card for a dive and was sent off.

Bakary Sako rounded off a great afternoon for Palace with a classy finish from Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s assist.

Palace moved to 14th position with 17 points from 18 games while Leicester, who had won their previous four games to move into eighth spot, have 26 points.