Leicester vs Manchester City – Premier League Match Preview

Dan Tracey November 18, 2017 Leave a comment 2,009 Views

Claude Puel may be unbeaten in his first two matches in charge of Leicester but he faces his toughest test yet as he prepares for the visit of the simply unstoppable Manchester City. No-one has defeated them yet this season can the Foxes be the first side to hunt Pep Guardiola’s men down.

For Leicester it is actually no defeat in five, a run of results which has seen three different men in charge, if you want to spin it positively then obviously it is an unbeaten streak but at the same time the failure to win saw Craig Shakespeare shown the King Power Stadium exit door.

In the middle of the three men who have taken charge of the 2015/16 champions in Michael Appleton. The former Manchester United player picked up where Shakespeare left off and led the club to a 2-1 win over Swansea at the Liberty Stadium.

After keeping the seat warm for Claude Puel, which as an appointment made Leicester fans feel slightly underwhelmed the former Southampton manager has picked up four points from a possible six as his side currently find themselves 12th in the table.

They are the highest scoring team in the bottom half of the table with 16 goals from their first 11 matches but as good as they are going forward they are just porous at the other end with the same amount of goals also having been conceded.

And it is that area of the pitch which Puel will need to tighten up especially if they are to make sure there is continued daylight between themselves and the bottom three, not only that though they are going to have to bit as solid as possible with the visit of freescoring Manchester City on the horizon.

38 goals have been scored in the Premier League alone by City this season, an average of over 3.5 goals per game. A simply phenomenal tally by any stretch of the imagination and by their own standards only had a below average turnout in their last outing.

That is because they only manged to score three goals against Arsenal but that still meant three points and that coupled with the fact that their crosstown rivals Manchester United lost to Chelsea later that afternoon means that Pep Guardiola’s men are now eight points clear at the top.

It is a case of everyone else trying to stay on City’s coattails right now such has been their domestic dominance this season and the question that is beginning to be asked is whether or not they can go the whole season unbeaten and be the new invincibles.

If that is to be the case then they will have to go another 27 league games unbeaten this season, you must however remember that they actually came unstuck here last December when they lost at this very ground by four goals to two.

That was in the days of Claudio Ranieri being at the Leicester helm and a lot has changed since then, more so the complexion of the Mancheste City team which has an even bigger embarrassment of riches then that of last season. The fact that Sergio Aguero, Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus have all scored more than six league goals speaks volumes.

This quartet of players have scored 28 out of the 38 goals that City have produced this season and it shows that there is no over reliance on any one particular player, there’s no need for a talisman when you have four at your disposal.

Any two or three from that four could start and you would not see any detriment to the final outcome and it is for that reason that as solid enough as Leicester have been under new boss Claude Puel I cannot see anything other than a Manchester City win this afternoon. An away win for me.

Here is what social media thinks will happen – you can still vote on the outcome