How Leicester should line-up against Aston Villa

With Leicester City looking to bounce back to winning ways against a high flying Aston Villa, but with injury news coming in, how should the Foxes line-up?

On Sunday night Leicester City take on high flying Aston Villa at King Power Stadium, with Brendan Rodgers side looking to get back to winning ways after a miserable defeat at the hands of West Ham last time out, but with questionable selection and formation at the heart of the Foxes demise two weeks ago, how should Rodgers line up against Dean Smith’s men.

Rodgers’ side go into the match scarred from the West Ham defeat after having started the season so brightly with three wins from three including that 5-2 victory against the mighty Manchester City.

Villa, on the other hand, remain one of two teams to have an 100% record so far and with their last victory being a 7-2 thrashing of holders Liverpool. They will come into the match with their tails up and full of confidence.

As far as injury news is concerned, James Maddison will be assessed before the game with a calf problem, Dennis Praet should make a return after a knee injury but he travelled with Belgian squad which is promising news.  Daniel Amartey, Wilfred Ndidi and Ricardo Pereira are longer term absentees so will not be available this weekend.

With that in mind, we turn our attention to how Rodgers would like to line up against the West Midlanders.

Hopefully he will revert to a back 4, with the back 3 working horribly against West Ham, however his hand was probably forced with Praet and Maddison being out, but with the two likely to feature it will more than likely be a standard line up. If the Foxes don’t try to overcomplicate things, something the Northern Irishman loves to do, they will come out on top.

A 4-3-3 is their best formation. It gives them the most fluidity and creativity, not to mention the protection of hard working midfielders. This game will be too soon for Maddison, but Praet – who has been easily one the best players for the Foxes this season – should slot right in, replacing Amartey. The Back four should be largely unchanged, therefore leaving the only selection dilemma on the right wing.

Ayoze Perez brings a lot of quality and his link up play means he is a key component to this Leicester side, but Cengiz Under is raw, exciting and will cause teams problems. We didn’t see much of him against West Ham but this would be a great opportunity to take a chance on him.

But the message is – nice and simple, please!

Suitable Leicester City line up:

Kasper Schmeichel; Timothy Castagne, Jonny Evans, Caglar Soyuncu, James Justin; Nampalys Mendy, Youri Tielemans, Praet; Under, Harvey Barnes; Jamie Vardy.

Substitutes: Danny Ward, Wesley Fofana, Hamza Choudhury, Marc Albrighton, Perez, Maddison, Kelechi Iheanacho.