Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson has heaped praise on Leonardo Ulloa for rediscovering his early-season form.

The Spanish striker netted a brace in the Foxes' 3-0 win over Newcastle United on Saturday which further enhanced their chances of retaining their Premier League status.

Ulloa has three goals in his past four outings, taking his season tally to 10, and Pearson was thrilled to see him firing again as the Leicestershire club look to push further clear of the bottom three.

"Strikers judge themselves on goals and Leo has more than his fair share of them this season," said Pearson ahead of Saturday's home meeting with Southampton.

"He has had some lean spells but you also have to recognise he was a Championship player last year.

"We've scored quite a lot of goals recently but we also had a spell where we weren't scoring goals when we were creating chances.

"You don't always get a true reflection of how players perform in those windows when we just look at results.

"I think we saw against Newcastle that Leo's found a way of getting himself back into that early-season form. Players will go in and out of form."