Leicester will travel to Crystal Palace and Selhurst Park this weekend, going there is no walk in the park, and we all know that Roy Hodgson will do what he can to prevent Leicester from getting anything out of this clash.
Claude Puel will most certainly have Harry Maguire back, but both Jamie Vardy and Ben Chilwell are doubtful for this clash on Saturday. Palace goes into the match with only one win in their last five games, Leicester have won two of their last five.
Leicester are 9th in the table, Palace is in 16th, 10 points between them and the clash should be a possible win for Leicester, but they need to find those counter attacking options and be more clinical in front of goal.
To have a player like James Maddison in the team will always give a guarantee for goals, and if Jamie Vardy is fit enough to play, surely Leicester will try to grab all three in this game without having any doubts.
Palace will be without a number of players and not really playing their best team, surely weakened by the fact that Wilfred Zaha is suspended and not playing. Other absentees could be Christian Benteke and James Tomkins.
The worry for most fans is the juggling of Claude Puel, both with players and systems, and you can see that what he is doing in the game is not really part of a plan trained and just making the decisions when he sees them in the game, of course that is a problem.
TCF would like to see Shinji Okazaki back in the starting line-up and move James Maddison out to one of the flanks, so that his shot, driblings and unpredictable moves can be seen in full. No one links up the midfield with the lonely forward better than Shinji, who has been lively, coming on in the last two games.
If Chilwell is not playing, Christian Fuchs will slot into that position and he has never played a bad game at Leicester, so he will do that job in full without doubt. Maguire is hopefully back alongside Morgan and we will see a relatively strong team out there against Palace.
The last clash at Selhurst Park ended in an embarrassing result, and hopefully that will not be copied and hopefully a good result will be achieved. Not much news from the press conference and just the same roll of talk that we all have seen in the press lately.
Referee,
Michael Oliver, a good referee hopefully keeping everything to standard
Last Meeting, 11 v. 11
Home: 16.12.17, 0-3, Defeat, Premier League
Away: 28.04.18, 0-5, Defeat, Premier League
Best Bet,
Our prediction is a 2-1 win to Leicester
Predicted Leicester City line-up,
System: 4-4-1-1, Schmeichel – Pereira, Maguire, Morgan, Fuchs – Ndidi, Mendy, Albrighton, Gray – Maddison – Vardy
Fun Fact,
Leicester and Crystal Palace rarely played each other back in the old days, never meeting in the league between 1925 and 1971. Leicester did play Crystal Palace in 1964 in a league cup clash over two games, ending with a Leicester win, and as we all know resulted in the first ever silverware by winning this cup defeating Stoke City.
In Both Camps,
Ade Akinbiyi, Trevor Benjamin, Alan Birchenall, Mark Bright, Bobby Kellard, Steve Kember, Jeffrey Schlupp, Patrick Van Aanholt and James Scowcroft are a few names to be both “eagles” and “foxes”. Damien Delaney and Marcus Bent are other players who have been seen in those two kits. Ally Brown should also be mentioned, with a longer life as a fox than an eagle. Tony Sealy is also a former player to have been seen at Filbert Street and Selhurst Park.
The big duel,
James Maddison v. Andros Townsend, both players are of such importance that the one being the best will surely have great influence on the result.
Leave a Reply