A busy week or so in the Premier League begins on Friday night when Leicester City look to strengthen their claims for Champions League football next season when they play host to Newcastle United at the King Power Stadium.
Leicester dropped a couple of points last week but still sit five points above West Ham in fifth. Newcastle go into this match needing four points to guarantee another season of Premier League football, although most judges would think they are safe anyway.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and the Sky Sports Premier League channels. The build up to the game begins at 7.30pm with the match kicking off at 8pm.
Leicester City
We’ve seen plenty of Leicester City recently as they have had a full schedule to catch up for matches they have missed due to their outstanding FA Cup run. Those matches probably caught up with them a little bit at Southampton last week but they have had a week to prepare for this one and it will be a big surprise if they are not right at this to go again, especially knowing how big a contest this is for them in terms of their top four hopes, with some difficult games to follow.
Leicester go into this match having taken seven points from their last nine available and four wins from their last seven matches. One reason for that has been the form of Kelechi Iheanacho, which has been important because the Foxes have battled a few injuries in recent times. They now must make sure their attention is solely on this match even though their first FA Cup final in 50+ years is looming large on the horizon.
Newcastle United
This has been another in a long list of seasons of struggle for Newcastle United but barring a complete collapse from them and one of the more remarkable turnarounds you’ll see from Fulham, the Magpies will be in the Premier League next term. What they must now make sure they do is finish the season well so at least there can be some positive vibes during the summer rather than the doom and gloom which is confined above St James’ Park.
That will require a complete turnaround in their performance levels from the one they produced last week when they were beyond awful against a pretty ordinary Arsenal side. It was a display which suggested some key players are already on the beach and they just can’t afford for the season to fizzle out like that. There can be no excuses for not finishing well because the key attackers they have missed recently are all available to Steve Bruce now.
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Team News
Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that despite originally being a doubt for the match both Jonny Evans and Ricardo Pereira are available to him. That leaves just Harvey Barnes, Wes Morgan and James Justin as senior players out injured.
Newcastle United will be without the suspended Fabian Schar who picked up a red card in the defeat to Arsenal last week. Isaac Hayden, Karl Darlow and Jamaal Lascelles all miss out but Joe Willock is available again after being forced to miss out against his parent club last week.
Betting
I’ve mentioned in recent weeks that Leicester City don’t keep many clean sheets and there is enough danger in the Newcastle attack to suggest that one isn’t automatic here. I do expect to see the Leicester which dispatched West Brom and Crystal Palace here though rather than the one which struggled to break down Southampton last week. Southampton are better than Newcastle anyway and even with 10 men they looked like scoring when they went forward against this Foxes side.
This is must win for Leicester which should give opportunities for Newcastle to have some fun on the counterattack so I like the idea of over 2.5 goals in this match. This line has been covered in the last three matches between these two sides and when you put in the factor that with Man Utd, Spurs and Chelsea as their last three, Leicester can’t afford to slip up here so if Newcastle do score the game will open right up. There is also the chance that Leicester get on top early and repeat their 5-0 dominance of last season in this fixture. However they come I like over 2.5 goals here.
Tips
WON – Back Over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.75 with Betfair
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