Leicester start the post-Ranieri era with a 3-1 win over Liverpool

With the atmosphere around the club looking poisonous after the sacking of Claudio Ranieri, Leicester City's 3-1 dismantling of Liverpool came as a massive surprise.

From the first blow of the whistle Leicester looked hungry, something fans haven't seen from the team in quite awhile. Headers from Robert Huth and Shinji Okazaki forced two fine saves from Liverpool's Simon Mignolet in the opening 10 minutes.

Jamie Vardy was the one to open the scoring. The striker raced onto a perfectly placed through ball from Marc Albrighton before calmly slotting it past Mignolet to make it 1-0 to the Foxes. It was Leicester's first league goal of 2017, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

From there the Foxes continued to look the more dangerous of the two sides. Wilfred Ndidi bossed the midfield, winning more tackles than anyone in the first half. He nearly found himself on the scoresheet, forcing Mignolet into another good save in the 34th minute.

Danny Drinkwater got into the action minutes later, scoring an absolute screamer of a volley from 25 yards to double the Foxes lead.

Liverpool did have a chance to get one back before the end of the half, but Emre Can's long range effort was brilliantly denied by Schmeichel.

The 2-0 lead left most of the footballing world in shock. The team played with hunger and passion for the first time in what seemed like forever, and from there things got even better, with Vardy bagging his second goal of the match in the 60th minute. Some great link up play from Christian Fuchs and Riyad Mahrez on the left gave Vardy a relatively easy chance to convert, with Fuchs eventually swinging a ball into the center for Vardy to head home and make it 3-0.

From there Liverpool piled on the pressure, scoring a routine goal through some easy link up play between Can and Philippe Coutinho, with the latter pulling one back for the visitors to make it 3-1.

From there Leicester defended relatively soundly and rode the tie out to climb to 15th in the table and 3 points out of the relegation. Although it's awful for Claudio Ranieri and his legacy, a performance like that will surely be enough to win a crucial 6-pointer against Hull City next weekend.