Saturday, September 19, 2020

New on Sports Illustrated: Burnley-Leicester City Preview

Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers does not wish to rush James Maddison back, as the England midfielder continues his comeback from injury.

Maddison missed the end of last season with a hip injury and only returned to the field during the second half of Leicester's 3-0 win over West Brom last time out.

The 23-year-old has trained ahead of Leicester's clash with Burnley on Sunday, but Rodgers is willing to take a cautious approach to bringing the playmaker back.

"He was out for a long time, James. It's going to be a really, really long season for us. We don't have to rush anyone back. We've got a good squad of players, we're hoping to add to that," Rodgers told a news conference.

"Certainly, the players we have, we can't afford to be risking any injury, if they're not ready, so he's been progressing really, really well and we'll assess that over the next 24 hours. If he doesn't start, we have a midweek game, and as we know, we've got a run of games now which sees us through to Christmas, so there will be plenty of football for all the players."

Burnley manager Sean Dyche, meanwhile, offered an update on winger Johann Berg Gudmundsson, who was taken off on a stretcher early on in the Clarets' EFL Cup win over Sheffield United on Thursday.

"It's better than we thought it could have been," Dyche said. "I've seen the incident back and the twist on his knee and obviously we were very concerned. It's calmed down overnight a little bit and we've had a scan and it's slightly better than we thought, so that's good news.

"There are no timescales yet but hopefully it should settle down sooner rather than later. He's got lucky, I think."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Leicester City – Jamie Vardy

Vardy scored twice against West Brom, and has netted more Premier League goals than any other player (25) since the start of last season. He also has the best shot conversion rate in the competition in that time.

Burnley – Chris Wood

While Ashley Barnes has struggled with an injury, Wood enters this season in fine form. The New Zealand striker has scored in each of his last three Premier League games – he last scored in four consecutive league games in January 2017, with Leeds United in the Championship.

KEY OPTA FACTS

• Leicester are unbeaten in nine home league games against Burnley, though the Clarets are looking to earn back-to-back league wins over Leicester for the first time since August 2006 when they won three in a row, and the first time in the top-flight since December 1968.

• The away team opened the scoring in both Premier League meetings between Leicester and Burnley last season. However, the home side came back to win 2-1 on each occasion.

• Burnley have won their opening league game in two of the last three seasons, and lost just one of their last eight Premier League away games in 2019-20.

• Leicester manager Rodgers has won 99 of his 209 Premier League matches in charge. Victory here will see him become the 23rd different manager to 100 wins in the competition, while he'd be the fourth quickest British manager to reach the milestone, after Alex Ferguson (162 games), Kenny Dalglish (197) and Kevin Keegan (209).

No comments:

Post a Comment