Will AFCB Break Goalless Run At Home To Leicester?

Written by billythekid

After our home game against Brentford, which finished in a dull 0-0 draw, the second home game since Gary O’Neil has been in charge which has finished goalless. Our fans will be hoping that things may improve with AFCB at home again, this time our visitors are Leicester City. If our last two home games against The Foxes are anything to go by we should be in for some goals, but the recent home form will need to change for that to happen. In the 2019-20 season, there were five goals scored and in the season before 2018-19 we were treated to six goals. The Cherries scored four in each of those games. In our five home games in the Premier League against City, we have won three and drawn two.

The Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers in his first full season in charge, which was the 2019-20 season his side had 14 points after eight games, they finished in 5th place with 62 points. 2020-21 season they had 18 points after eight games, finishing in 5th place with 66 points and last season they had 11 points after eight games, finishing 8th with 52 points.

Leicester City signed two players in the Summer, the Reims centre-back Wout Faes for £15 million and goalkeeper Alex Smithies on a free signing from Cardiff City. Two of the players who left City was centre-back Wesley Fofana joining Chelsea in a deal worth £75 million and long-serving goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel to French club Nice.

Rodger’s team this season have had their worst start since he became the Leicester City manager at the end of February in 2019, with 4 points after eight games. They drew the first game of the season at home 2-2 with Brentford. The defeats at home, Southampton 1-2 and Manchester United 0-1. The defeats away have been Arsenal 4-2, Chelsea 2-1, Brighton 5-2 and Spurs 6-2. Their most recent game was at home against Nottingham Forest, Leicester City winning 4-0 in a much more convincing performance that took them off the foot of the table with their first win this season and first clean sheet.

The last time our two sides met at Dean Court was back in the 2019-20 season, with Cherries winning 4-1. Vardy had put Leicester 0-1 up which was the only goal in the first half. Stanislas equalised from the spot in the 66th minute and one minute later Solanke put AFCB ahead and in the Cherries celebrations, Foxes defender Soyuncu kicked Callum Wilson and Leicester City were down to ten men. Evans scored an own goal towards the end of the game to make the score 3-1 and four minutes later Solanke scored his second goal and that’s how the game ended.

In our home league games against Leicester City, AFCB have W 4, D 2, L 3.
In all competitions, AFCB have W 6, D 5, L 8.

AFCB v Leicester

AFCB Win

Draw

Leicester Win

AFCB Team News
Hopefully one or two of our injured players are close to a return, possibly starting on the bench.

AFCB Player To Watch
Philip Billing and Dominic Solanke hopefully will be back in positions where they can be a threat to the opposition’s defence. Billing has scored his two goals from an attacking midfield role, but against Brentford, he didn’t play in that role. It was the same for Dominic Solanke and especially Kieffer Moore who when needed to be on the end of crosses into the box, Moore ended up being the person putting those crosses into the box. Hence our players were no real threat to the Brentford goal.

Leicester City Team News
Ricardo Pereira and Ryan Bertrand are out injured. Wilfred Ndidi who returned from injury against Forest on Monday night, was substituted at half-time as a precaution after feeling his hamstring, must be a slight doubt for Saturday.

Leicester City Player To Watch
James Maddison has been in great form in midfield this season and had a really good game against Nottingham Forest on Monday night scoring 2 and assisting 1 in their 4-0 win. He is the leading scorer with 5 goals and has 2 assists in 7 starts. Jamie Vardy not on the score sheet this season has in his last two seasons scored 30 goals, 15 in each season.

The Referee
Michael Salisbury is in charge of this game. He is the son of Graham Salisbury who retired at the end of the 2020-21 season as a football league referee.
Michael Salisbury was the referee for our away League Cup game at Norwich.

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