This week hasn’t been the best for any City fan. Not in terms of football, anyway. Our Champions League hopes look shattered after losing to Barcelona last Tuesday and the quest to retain our Premier League title has been made infinitely harder with the loss at Anfield on Sunday that leaves Chelsea still only five points ahead, but now with a game in hand given that they didn’t play in the league this weekend.
The Blues will look to try and regain some form on Wednesday night however, with Leicester City paying a visit to Manchester in the Premier League. It will be the first visit of The Foxes to this side of Manchester in over four years, with their last visit coming in an FA Cup replay in January 2011.
However, City have faced Leicester already this season, at the King Power Stadium back in mid-December in the middle of that tremendous run of wins that saw us within a breadth of taking the title lead from Chelsea. That day City struggled to break down Nigel Pearson’s men, with Frank Lampard’s goal late in the second half giving City a much-needed 1-0 win. That came almost a year after City’s previous visit to The Foxes’ turf, a 3-1 win in the Capital One Cup in December 2013, a win that put us in the semi-finals – and the rest, as they say, is history.
The last time City had a visit from Leicester was after a disappointing 1-1 draw on their ground in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, which needed a tie at Eastlands to settle it. Whilst it wasn’t as easy as some might have hoped, City managed to get a 4-2 win, with Carlos Tevez, Patrick Vieira, Adam Johnson and Aleksandar Kolarov scoring for The Blues. Again, that game was in a competition that City would go on to win the very same season. Maybe it’s a sign.
Manuel Pellegrini has confirmed that City have got a full squad going into Wednesday’s visit from Leicester, pleasing listening to sky blue supporters. We need to try and get our form back with a win, and there’s no better way to do that than with a full squad. Wilfried Bony is likely to start, having not started in any of the last three games, and this being the perfect match for him to do so.
Leicester also have no absentees going into the game, with Kasper Schmeichel the last man on the injury table. However, it is expected that he’ll be back fit for the game, recovering from a broken metatarsal. Whether he’ll face the club he played 8 league games for is a different matter.
Both teams need a win, yet for very different reasons. City still retain some hope of winning the league title, even if it is purely mathematical, but if they’re to accomplish their goal they need to start winning with just 11 games of the season left. Leicester also need to start winning, but not for the same reason. The Foxes are currently propping up the table with just 18 points this season, and if they want to make sure they’re in the top flight for next season they need to start picking them up soon. With City’s recent patchy form, Nigel Pearson might just feel this is the perfect game for his side to start their run to survival. Every City fan will be hoping it isn’t.
