Set for an emotional day at the King Power

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Tomorrow’s game at Leicester will be their first home game since the shocking helicopter crash after their game against West Ham two weeks ago that took the lives of five people including their chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.

It will be an afternoon of tributes before the game and for myself, I will be involved in the laying of a wreath on behalf of Burnley FC Supporters Groups outside the stadium at 1:30 p.m. alongside members of the supporters’ groups at Leicester. We’ve been in constant contact with them during the last two weeks and this was the best way we thought that we could pay our respects.

It’s made it a different sort of build up and our players have spoken this week about the emotion involved and then the need to go out and perform. Steven Defour spoke about it as did Chris Wood, and for Wood there is so much more significance given he was a Leicester player for two and a half years and was a member of the team that won promotion to the Premier League in 2014.

Wood said: “It’s going to be a day full of emotion, both on and off the pitch, for everyone involved. It hits home a bit more for me because I was there for two and a half years and knew the owner quite well.

Embed from Getty Images“The amount of things the family and Vichai have done over the years to improve and help the city is huge and there’s a big respect for them. The family went over and beyond for anybody and did all they could to help their team, their club and the city.”

Wood came off the bench to score his first Premier League goal of the season last week at West Ham and he added: “From warm ups and kick off we need to be switched on and ready. We know there are going to be a lot of things happening and rightly so with the respect for what he did and the owner he was, but come the ninety minutes we need to be ready as a team.”

He’s been out of the team recently but I thought he was one of very few players who came out of last week’s game with much credit when he came on and he could get a start this week at Leicester. I’d certainly like to see Jeff Hendrick return rather than us playing a 4-4-2 and it would be good to see Robbie Brady back on the pitch where his season came to an end last season.

There seems to be every likelihood that James Tarkowski will be ruled out with further surgery a possibility and with Ben Gibson recovering from his second bout of surgery last week, we can expect Kevin Long to partner Ben Mee in the centre of defence.

Jack Cork is fit again and I think he’ll come straight back in while Phil Bardsley also returns to the squad after he, like Cork, missed out last week because of injury.

The team could be: Joe Hart, Matt Lowton, Kevin Long, Ben Mee, Charlie Taylor, Jόhann Berg Guðmundsson, Steven Defour, Jack Cork, Robbie Brady, Jeff Hendrick, Chris Wood. Subs from: Tom Heaton, Phil Bardsley, Ashley Westwood, Dwight McNeil, Aaron Lennon, Matěj Vydra, Ashley Barnes, Sam Vokes.

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