Leicester v Norwich Preview by Simon Mack

Leicester City vs Norwich

Saturday 14^th December 3:00pm

King Power Stadium

The foxes head into the busy festive season with a home match up against last season’s Championship winners Norwich City.

The canaries return to England’s top flight has been a mixed bag to date and the club sit in 19^th place 4 points from safety. Norwich’s last outing ended in defeat at home to Sheffield Utd who have made a more impressive start to their Premier League campaign having also won promotion last term, and a further defeat for Norwich the week prior away to fellow strugglers Southampton confirmed the club’s status in a dog fight at the bottom for survival.

Canaries Manager Daniel Farke has alluded to the ‘outstanding performance’ that his side will have to produce in order to get anything from the game when they visit the East Midlands this weekend, and whilst his side have shown flashes of capability to mix at a level higher than their league placing suggests inconstancy had been an unwelcome bedfellow that has seen their hit and miss displays ultimately cost them to date in a league where mistakes are ruthlessly punished.

Norwich have lost more games than any other in the Premier League to date with 11 of their 16 matches ending in defeat and the manager will be hoping to welcome back captain Grant Hanley to his defence having returned to full training from injury. Josip Drmic and Timm Klose remain unavailable too but on a brighter note Farke has no new injury issues and last season’s top scorer Teemu Pukki has continued to find the net with a respectable 8 goals so far this term along with 3 assists. Former Newcastle, Brighton and Dutch national keeper Tim Krul is certain to be between the posts as usual for this one whilst academy product Todd Cantwell continues to impress in midfield.

For the foxes the good news stories seem to never end at the moment. With a record breaking run of consecutive victories and the league’s top scorer in career best form this Leicester side are not only a delight to watch but are clinical in their execution of opponents in a beautifully efficient fashion. The festive period delivers games against both Manchester City and Liverpool their main rivals at the top of the league and this match up with strugglers Norwich could create the platform that with begin a defining period in their season.

Further good news from the city camp in manager Brendan Rodgers signing a new long term deal will have further lifted an already buoyant mood and the Northern Irishman has a fully fit and available match day squad to select from. Demari Gray returned to the bench for last week’s away victory at Aston Villa but did not feature and he has competition from the side line now with the superb form of Kelechi Ihanacho making for a wealth of options all baying for match day game time.

The form of Iheanacho might mean that Ayonze Perez has to get a bit more used to the view from the dugout in the coming weeks, but with vital games coming thick and fast Rodgers seems certain to mix and match in order to keep things fresh and to deploy his canny ability to subtly mould the foxes system to best effect each week to ensure the 3 points belong to Leicester City.

Rodgers has ruled out any of his squad heading for the exit door in January despite rumours that Dennis Praet may head to Fiorentina to seek more regular 1^st team football, and the foxes boss also alluded to his side’s toil against teams that turn up at King Power Stadium to sit back and defend. There’s no doubt that last week’s honest attacking endeavour from Aston Villa saw them royally punished by their visitors and you’d not be at all surprised to see the canaries sit in and expect Leicester to find a way through their retracted numbers through a congested and deep set final 3^rd of the pitch.

Leicester City possible line up:

Schmeichel, Ricardo, Evans, Soyuncu, Chilwell, Tielemans, Ndidi, Barnes, Maddison, Vardy, Iheanacho

Norwich City possible starting lineup:

Krul, Aarons, Zimmermann, Godfrey, Lewis, Tettey, Trybull, Buendia, Cantwell, Hernandez, Pukki