Leicester City welcome Midlands rivals, Aston Villa to the King Power Stadium in a midtable Premier League encounter.
Victory would see Leicester stay ninth, whereas a win would lift Villa as high as 12th in the table.
Team News
Leicester have no fresh injury concerns after their 1-1 draw at Everton in midweek as Jamie Vardy is a doubt with the striker nearing a return from a knee injury.
Boubakary Soumare (groin), Ryan Bertrand and Wilfred Ndidi (all knee) remain absent.
Villa could welcome Kortney Hause back into contention after the defender missed their last three matches with an abdominal injury.
Lucas Digne (collarbone) is unlikely to be risked until he is fully match-fit.
Stat Attack
- Leicester have lost just two of their last eight league meetings against Aston Villa (W5, D1, L2).
- Villa have won two of their last five league visits to Leicester (W2, L3).
- Harvey Barnes has scored in each of his last two appearances for Leicester against Villa.
- Leicester have scored first in each of the last seven league matches in which they found the net (W4, D2, L1).
- Villa have lost their last two away matches by 2-1 results at West Ham and Wolves respectively.
Prediction
Despite enduring a packed run of fixtures in recent weeks, Leicester were actually the better team against Everton on Wednesday evening with fantastic aggression in their attacks, amidst wasteful finishing of numerous chances so a more polished final product would be nice to see here.
Villa meanwhile are on a four-match losing streak but haven’t played in a fortnight since they were outclassed at home to Tottenham, although they did play well on the attack despite poor finishing but slow defensive reactions and marking proved their downfall as did an inability to cope with long balls.
Both teams therefore come into this match with various aspects of their game to improve but if Leicester can sort out their final touches, I fancy them to head into their Europa Conference League semi-final against AS Roma on a high.
Prediction: Leicester 2-1 Aston Villa
Result: Leicester 0-0 Aston Villa
Leave a Reply