Leicester City eight points clear after Riyad Mahrez sees off Crystal Palace

That’s how you’re gonna beat ’em, Claudio. They keep on underestimating you. Leicester went eight points clear at the top of the Premier League with a tight, eagerly fought 1-0 victory made by Riyad Mahrez’s well-worked winning goal, and by some dogged defending as Crystal Palace attacked with purpose in the last half hour.

Palace pressed hard at times. Leicester were good in spells but rarely at full stretch. And so the procession towards what is starting to look a slightly routine fairytale title push continues with a fourth 1-0 win in five games. At times it is tempting to wonder not whether Leicester are going to choke or collapse, but whether anyone is actually going to give them a game right from the start. Or at least tear into them as Palace only did here towards the end once Alan Pardew had rejigged his team to stem the threat of Mahrez down the right.

The Algerian was the difference here in the first half, delicately purposeful in possession, tracking back when required and a ghost off the ball as Palace attacked. Pape Souaré’s substitution at half-time was presumably because he needed to have his neck iced, so many times did Palace’s left-back find himself whirling around in a funk trying to work out exactly where Mahrez had shimmied off to.

The finish for the crucial first-half goal was routine from Mahrez, but it was made by a fine, pre-emptive run, and by the usual boldness Leicester’s chief creator tends to show away from home. Ten of Mahrez’s Premier League goals have come away from the King Power. Most have come at vital points. He may be lithe and louche and blessed with a feathery touch but he has been fearless too, not just decorating this team but driving them on too.

On a chilly, wet day in Croydon, both teams lined up in a new-school 4-4-2.

Leicester picked the usual team. Palace were unchanged too, with Yannick Bolasie a step or two behind Emmanuel Adebayor and given freedom to scuttle about, gloved fists pumping, in search of space.

It turned out to be a shape poorly fitted to the personnel, however, as Joe Ledley, not a natural left-midfielder, struggled to track Mahrez and protect his full back. At half-time time Pardew acted, junking his entire left side, bringing on Martin Kelly and Bakary Sako. By then, though, it was too late.

All of which made for some unfortunate timing given Pardew’s unusually grudging programme notes, in which he got his praise for the league leaders out of the way up front and lingered instead on the 10 penalties Leicester have been awarded this season and the lack of injuries in their squad, along with a lament about his own team’s bad luck on similar “fine margins”.