Leicester City are still seven points adrift of a top-six berth, but Rodgers’ team faces an uphill battle with games against Manchester City, Liverpool, and Tottenham spaced out during the winter period. They need a comprehensive win to regain their confidence, and the upcoming home match against a relegation-threatened Newcastle appears to be a wonderful opportunity.
On the other hand, Newcastle are coming on the back of a crucial 1-0 victory against Burnley to lift themselves from the foot of the table and within three points of safety. That said, bagging only five points from a run of a winnable set of fixtures against Brentford, Norwich City, and Burnley is just not good enough. They will now need to eke out a result in this game with big-boys Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United on the horizon.
Kelechi Iheanacho, Ayoze Perez, Jannik Vestergaard, Daniel Amartey, Ademola Lookman, Filip Benkovic and Vontae Daley-Campbell all missed the defeat to Napoli due to illness or for coronavirus-related reasons.
Youri Tielemans returned from a five-match absence with a calf injury to start the match in Naples and the midfielder, having played 77 minutes, is expected to be involved again.
Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe hopes to have Fabian Schar and Ryan Fraser available.
There has not been a single draw in the last 13 Premier League meetings between Leicester and Newcastle, with the Magpies only winning five of them (L8). But they did win the most recent fixture 4-2 back in May this year.
Newcastle United have had the better of Leicester City in three of their last four matches at the King Power Stadium.
The Tyneside outfit have been very poor at the back this term and are the second-worst defensive side in the division, with only basement boys Norwich leaking more goals than them.
Leicester have not fared much better defensively either and have conceded at least twice in each of their last five Premier League home games.
The Foxes’ striker Jamie Vardy has been directly involved in 25 goals in his last 18 Premier League outings against teams starting the day in the relegation zone (18G 7A), while his tally against Newcastle is also impressive, bagging four goals in his last six league appearances against the Magpies.
34 - Newcastle have conceded 34 Premier League goals this season, more than any other side, with this their highest tally of goals conceded after their first 16 matches of any league campaign since 1977-78 (also 34), when they went on to be relegated from the top-flight. Worry.
Oct 94: Palace 1-0 Everton
