Not many fans of Manchester United will forget the 21st September 2014 in a hurry. After 60 minutes they were 3-1 up and coasting, thanks to goals from Robin van Persie, Angel Di Maria and Ander Herrera. Somehow by full time they had completely imploded (with the aid of a soft penalty) and had lost 5-3 and it felt like the Manchester United fans world had fallen apart (again). After a fantastic 4-0 victory against QPR the week before how had they managed to throw away a 2 goal lead and concede 4 goals in the last 30 minutes.
To be quite honest I still don’t think anyone knows how Man Utd lost that game as they played great football for periods and in the earlier exchanges of the game Di Maria scored one of the greatest goals you are likely to see in the Premier League this season.
Anyhow, it’s time to have a look at the journey both teams have taken in the last 4 months.
At the end of that game it left Manchester United sitting in 12th place with a 20% win ratio in the league and Leicester City sitting in 7th place in the table with a 40% win ratio. Fast forward 4 months and 17 Premier League games later and Manchester United are sitting in 4th with a 50% win ratio and Leicester City are sitting in 20th with an 18% win ratio. Manchester United used the last fixture against Leicester as a catalyst to go on a streak in which they only lost 1 game in the next 15 league games, whereas Leicester lost the energy they had as a newly promoted side and went on a 13 game run in the league without managing a single victory. However since they defeated Hull 1-0 at the end of December they have went on a very impressive run winning 4 and drawing 1 of their last 6 games. They knocked Spurs out of the cup, defeated Hull, Newcastle and Aston Villa in the league and made a very impressive comeback to claim a point at Anfield after falling 2 goals behind.
Momentum is a word that I use a lot as I feel it is really important in football and Leicester City have that momentum at present. They have started to get real momentum going and have only conceded 4 goals in their last 6 games. This could cause Manchester United real problems as they have drawn a blank in 3 of their last 6 games.
Manchester United on the other hand although they have improved their win ratio and league position since the last fixture between these 2, they still haven’t made very much progress in my opinion. They don’t have a style of play at all and struggle to show any form of consistency or performance for 90 minutes. They don’t create enough chances and this was very worrying when they struggled to break down lower league opposition in Yeovil for 64 minutes and couldn’t even score against Cambridge.
If you look at the Man Utd team that started the last day against Leicester. De Gea, Rafael, Evans, Blackett, Rojo, Blind, Herrera, Di Maria, Rooney, RVP and Falcao. I suspect very few changes in personnel here. I can see Herrera being replaced by Carrick, Rafael by Valencia, Evans by Jones and Blackett by Shaw. This should make them a lot stronger at the back and much less vulnerable to Leicester on the counter attack like the last day. An important note is, since that loss, van Gaal has been very reluctant to employ the diamond season since then. Only really Cambridge and Man City spring to mind with that system; whilst van Gaal has opted for 3-5-2 mostly since then, or 4-3-3.
In terms of the Leicester team I expect it to be almost identical to the team they had the last day. Kasper Schmeichel is a doubt and may be replaced by Hamer like he has for the last 7 games. The main difference in personnel however will be the addition of Kramaric. This is a player that has just arrived at Leicester with a huge reputation. He scored 21 goals in 18 games already this season in Croatia and for me he is a definite starter. He will be a real handful for United defenders and it will be interesting to see how he copes in what will be his first start in the Premier League.
In terms of predicting a result I’m not going to bother, as quite simply anything could happen (as we saw!) here so ensure you tune in on Saturday at 3pm to find out.
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