English Premier League Preview : Chelsea Versus Leicester City (Week 8).

English Premier League Preview: Chelsea Versus Leicester City (Week 8).

By Ewah Chika.

After the long international break English Premier League fans are more than delighted to see the return of club football this Saturday as Antonie Conte's Chelsea host champions Leicester City in the weekend's early kick-off in a game expected to be full of goals.

Chelsea are struggling of late sitting seventh conceding nine goals in seven games. Recently the Blues have gained just four points from their last four games losing to both Liverpool and Arsenal. Leicester on their part are 12th in the table with a goal difference of -3, losing to the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool. One good news though for Chelsea is that they are unbeaten in their last five home league games against a struggling Leicester City.


Conte is expected to set out his team in a 3-4-3 formation with John Terry making his return from an ankle injury positioned on the left side of defence with the likes of Cesar and David Luiz who will be chagrged with bringing the ball out of defence and playing his defence splitting pass to the attackers. Chelsea is likely to dominate central midfield due to their energy and quality of N'Golo Kante and Nemanja Matic. Conte will look to exploit the vacuum the absence of Kante has created for the Midlands club with the likes of Amartey and King finding it difficult to keep up to the Frenchman's standards. Playing the game at a high energy and tempo will benefit Chelsea as the likes of Moses (wing-back), Hazard and Pedro are blessed with the lightening pace and trickery to unsettle Leicester immobile centre backs Morgan and Robert Huth. To maximise Costa's impact, the Spainard needs to avoid playing physical as this will play perfectly into the hands of Huth and Morgan who relish such opponents. Costa will need to drop deep to receive the ball sometimes, creating a vacuum in the final third which must be taken up by either of Pedro and Hazard as false nine's when Chelsea are in possession as Costa will drag either centre backs to himself making the defence porous. Conte will do well to instruct Marcus Alonso to whip in crosses from the left wing as that is one of the wing-back's greatest attributes with Costa perfect in aerial duels.

This season, Leicester have struggled mainly due to the alteration of their style, as the team has become more offensive instead of their counter attacking style which so suited them last season. The Midlands club are the only Premier League club yet to  pick up any point away from home this season at the same time conceding the most in the league away from home in addition to the recent eight goals conceded in their last two games.  As champions, Ranieri has charged his team to attack their opponents from the first minute which they are yet to come to terms with. Ranieri will have to work on his team's set-piece organisation which saw them concede three goals in the 4-2 loss to Chelsea in the League Cup in addition to the three goals they conceded (from set-piece) in the 4-1 loss at Old Trafford in the league . To counter Chelsea, Leicester will need to outscore their opponents as Leicester will find it difficult to secure a clean sheet against a quality Chelsea side having conceded 11 goals in seven league games thus far. One thing going for Leicester is the quality of their substitutes with the likes of Ahmed Musa, Okazaki and Darmian Gray likely to score and change the game when introduced. Leicester will also have to exploit the spaces left at the back by Chelsea's three man defence.

It is difficult to predict who will come out on top at the end of the 90 minutes but one thing is saw and that is - the game will be a highly competitive game full of goals and likely to be decided by little details as the two Italian managers try to outwit each other.