Can City Make It 7th Heaven Against Watford

Match Preview by Simon Mack

Leicester City vs Watford

Wednesday 4^th December 2019 19:30

King Power Stadium

The foxes 6 match winning streak gets its chance to continue on Wednesday night with a home match up against manager less bottom of the table Watford.

Former Palace and West Ham midfielder Hayden Mullins has taken the temporary reigns at Vicarage Road since the sacking of Quique Sánchez Flores less than 3 months after regaining the hornet’s hot seat having left the club 3 years before.

Defeat to fellow bottom three dwellers Southampton last Saturday spelt the end once again for Flores and his brief tenure only brought just one victory for Watford, and the past 4 games have all ended in defeat with only 2 goals scored in anger during that period.

Former England forward Danny Welbeck and hornets defender Christian Kabasele are both definite omissions for this one with injury whilst Craig Dawson and Tom Cleverley are battling to be available. Sebastian Prodl is out until the new year with knee trouble as is Dutch international full back Daryl Janmaat. The hornets have more than their fair share of injury woes and with defender Kiko Femenia also 50-50 Watford’s first choice defence has been significantly depleted.

Gerard Deulofeu is one of four hornets with 2 goals so far this season, but the Spaniard’s 2 assists make him the most offensively influential player within their ranks to date. Troy Deeney has made 3 appearances so far this season without troubling the scorers having missed the start of the season having had knee surgery and with the likes of Will Hughes and Andre Gray amongst their ranks whilst their current points tally looks like potential relegation form the hornets do have a credible offensive threat.

Foxes manager Brendan Rodgers swept aside the Arsenal rumours post victory against Everton and has hinted in his pre match media work of changes for this second game in 3 days. Demari Gray missed the Sunday clash with ‘flu like symptoms’ but it wouldn’t be a surprise if fit to see him start this one having made a significant impact from the bench in recent weeks.

City are amassing a bench of some talent and with Rodgers looking to a busy period of festive matches some others who have warmed up and watched on in recent times might see their chance come along in a home tie against the league’s most struggling opponent. Dennis Praet, Marc Albrighton, Hamza Choudhury and Sunday’s hero Kelechi Iheanacho might all get game time of some sort, and Leicester continue to be fortunate in terms of injury with no significant issues to report.

Rodgers was asked in his pre match press conference on Tuesday if the foxes were ‘realistic’ title contenders and the Northern Irishman said how happy he was with his side’s consistency and stamina in recent times, and that he would not be drawn on any title talk until the 10 game to go mark.

Rodgers first game in charge of city having joined the club from Celtic was against Watford and who could have anticipated quite where the team would go in such a short space of time?

Pundits and bookies all have Leicester as winners in this one to varying degrees of scale  and a 7^th win on the bounce for the foxes would certainly warm those Liverpool catching hopes a little more as those crunch games with Manchester City and the Anfield league leaders loom on the festive horizon.

Leicester City possible line up:

Schmeichel, Ricardo, Evans, Soyuncu, Chilwell, Ndidi, Maddison, Tielemans, Gray, Perez, Vardy

Watford possible line up:

Foster, Femenia, Cathcart, Mariappa, Masina, Holebas, Capoue, Hughes, Doucoure, Gray, Deeney