More Fox hunting as catch up continues

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It’s like a Football League season right now with all the midweek games and here we are again, back at the Turf on a Tuesday night with a home game against Leicester City.

It’s the third midweek home game in four weeks, following on from Manchester United and Spurs. Although there are no more scheduled as yet, we still have two games to rearrange, at Aston Villa and the home game against Everton. Tonight’s game, like Spurs last week, is part of the catch up of games, this one having previously been postponed in January.

I referred to Fox hunting in the title, simply because I did last year when the same fixture was played on 3^rd March, just two days short of a year ago. It’s interesting to look at the table ahead of that game. We were 15^th with 28 points from 26 games; Leicester were up in third place and only one point behind Manchester United in second place.

Tonight, we go into the game in 18^th place and we know we will have to move up one place by the time the season ends. As it happens, a win tonight would take us up three places, above Everton, Leeds and Brentford and we’d still have games in hand on two of them. A draw would still see us go ahead of Everton but that would be on goal difference with them having one game to play.

It’s good that I’m even able to look at these possibilities when three games ago we looked nowhere near any of the teams directly ahead of us.

Leicester were one of the clubs strongly linked with James Tarkowski last summer but the central defender will be in our team tonight and said ahead of the game: “We’ve gone a bit back to basics. I think we were probably over complicating things a bit and when things aren’t going your way, you sometimes try to have a look at yourselves too much. Everyone is on board, and you can clearly see it in our performances recently.”

Embed from Getty ImagesTarky has been in outstanding form recently and came straight back into the side having missed the Brighton win through suspension. He’ll line up tonight in a team that’s going to show at least one change from the team that drew at Crystal Palace.

Erik Pieters looks set to miss out having picked up a knee injury at Palace which is likely to see Charlie Taylor back in the starting line up having returned himself last Saturday via the bench. The only other potential change is Ashley Westwood for Jack Cork.

That could see us line up: Nick Pope, Connor Roberts, James Tarkowski, Ben Mee, Charlie Taylor, Aaron Lennon, Josh Brownhill, Ashley Westwood, Dwight McNeil, Wout Weghorst, Jay Rodriguez. Subs from: Wayne Hennessey, Matt Lowton, Phil Bardsley, Nathan Collins, Kevin Long, Bobby Thomas, Jack Cork, Maxwel Cornet, Ashley Barnes, Lewis Richardson.

Leicester have had a difficult run of results in the league since the turn of the year. They’ve only played five Premier League games, none of which they have won, and their last victory in the Premier League came when an Ademola Lookman (pictured below) goal gave them a 1-0 win against Liverpool in their final game in 2021.

Embed from Getty ImagesThey’ve dropped into the bottom half of the table. They have 27 points, six more than us and from one game less, but they have been beaten on one more occasion than us.

For tonight’s game they have an almost fully fit squad. Ricardo Pereira was back last game and Jamie Vardy is available again and Wesley Fofana is close to a return.

Last time out they were unfortunate to lose at Wolves when their team was: Kasper Schmeichel, Ricardo Pereira, Daniel Amartey, Çaglar Söyüncü, Luke Thomas, Youri Tielemans, Wilfred Ndidi, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Marc Albrighton, Patson Daka, Ademola Lookman. Subs: Danny Ward, Eldin Jakupvoc, James Maddison, Kelechi Iheanacho, Ayoze Pérez, Hamza Choudhury, Jannik Vestergaard, Nampalys Mendy, Boubakary Soumaré.

 

LAST TIME THEY WERE HERE

 

We were back home after a 4-0 hammering at Spurs and returned to the Turf where we’d drawn the three previous home games against three of the teams around us in the table.

We started well and we were in front in only the fourth minute with Matěj Vydra scoring his first goal in over a year. Leicester carelessly gave the ball away and Vydra was onto it. He went past Wilfred Ndidi to get into the box, took one more touch and then hammered the ball home with a shot that left Kasper Schmeichel helpless.

Embed from Getty ImagesWhen Leicester equalised, it was a superb left foot volley from Kelechi Iheanacho, just as we thought we might be going into the half time break with a lead.

We were superb in the second half but had to settle for a point in a 1-1 draw because of the woodwork and Schmeichel who made two astonishing saves to deny Chris Wood but this had been a good performance.

The teams were;

Burnley: Nick Pope, Matt Lowton, James Tarkowski, Ben Mee, Charlie Taylor, Josh Brownhill, Ashley Westwood, Jack Cork, Dwight McNeil, Chris Wood, Matěj Vydra (Jay Rodriguez 90+2). Subs not used: Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Phil Bardsley, Kevin Long, Jimmy Dunne, Erik Pieters, Dale Stephens, Josh Benson, Lewis Richardson.

Leicester: Kasper Schmeichel, Daniel Amartey, Wilfred Ndidi, Çaglar Söyüncü, Nampalys Mendy (Wesley Fofana 66), Ricardo Pereira, Hamza Choudhury (Sidnei Tavares 77), Youri Tielemans, Timothy Castagne, Kelechi Iheanacho (Marc Albrighton 67), Jamie Vardy. Subs not used: Danny Ward, Cengiz Ünder, Christian Fuchs, Luke Thomas, Thakgalo Leshabela, Vontae Daley-Campbell.

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