Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
After the fairytale of last season and winning the Premier League, Leicester City get their reward on Wednesday as they take on Club Brugge in their first ever Champions League encounter. Claudio Ranieri’s side haven’t had the best of starts in the league and they will hope to once again be a surprise package but this time on the European stage.
Saturday saw them comprehensively beaten by Liverpool at Anfield as Jurgen Klopp’s side ran out 4-1 winners and the question now for Ranieri is whether or not he changes his approach for these European nights or whether or not he continues with his all out counter attack approach.
The rational decision would probably be to drop an extra man into the middle of the park but neutrals would probably want to see Leicester approach the game in the same manner in which the approached the whole of last season. It may seem them crash and burn but at least it will be an interesting spectacle.
The curiosity of Leicester in the Champions League will certainly grab a lot of people’s attention on Wednesday night, we’ll now have to wait and see if they can get off to a flying start by coming away from Belgium with all three points.
Their opponents Club Brugge didn’t have the best of weekends as they lost away at Waasland-Beveren, a solitary goal was enough for Brugge to come away empty handed, not the best of preparation for this Champions League campaign I’m sure you will agree.
Then again that’s not to forget that Leicester were soundly beaten at Anfield so neither team will be coming into this tie on a huge wave of optimism. Claudio Ranieri will have to make sure that defeat is totally out of the players systems come Wednesday nights, the last thing they want to do is get stagefright on Europe’s biggest stage.
They did the unthinkable last season in the Premier League and who knows what they can do in the Champions League. Can they win it? who knows but I certainly think they can get off to the perfect start with a win here tonight. An away win for me.
