Match Preview: Brighton must be due a win over Leicester, right?
When the draw for the fifth round of the FA Cup was made at the start of January and it handed Brighton a potential trip to Leicester City, the Albion were in such wretched form that we expected to be concocting a match preview which offered very little hope of success at the King Power Stadium.
Which just goes to prove how quickly things can change in football. Here we are a little over four weeks later with the Seagulls’ season seemingly transformed and confidence high that the Albion could beat Leicester for the first time in eight attempts.
12 points from a possible 18 since the start of 2021 have lifted Brighton 10 clear of the relegation zone. It has not exactly been an easy run of fixtures either; Spurs at home and Liverpool away should have been two of the toughest matches of the season and yet the Albion deservedly emerged with six points and zero goals conceded.
If you can win at Anfield, you can win anywhere. So, why not the King Power Stadium? Yes, Leicester are an excellent side but on current form, Brighton should fear no-one.
Should Graham Potter sends out a team who can win the game, then the Albion could be in with a shot of a third FA Cup quarter final appearance in four seasons.
Leicester City this season
The Foxes are enjoying a fine season and although the title looks certain to be heading to the blue half of Manchester, Brendan Rodgers’ side could yet finish as the best of the rest after champions-elect City.
Leicester currently sit third in the table, two points behind Manchester United in second. More importantly, they are four points clear of Chelsea in fifth.
After missing out on a Champions League spot right at the end of last season having spent virtually the entire campaign in the top four, it’s fairly obvious that securing a return to the top table of European football will be Leicester’s priority over the final three months of the campaign.
What does that mean for how seriously Rodgers will take the FA Cup? He has sent out relatively strong teams in the previous two rounds to safely navigate potential banana skins against Championship pair Stoke City and Brentford, suggesting that he might even have one eye on the prize and a place in the history books as the first Leicester manager to win the famous trophy.
The Foxes have been the bridesmaids four times in the past, the most number of runners up finishes in the FA Cup for a side who have never won the competition. With the way they have played this season, there would be worse bets to make using a 1xbet promo code than Leicester to win the FA Cup.
There is though the return of the Europa League next week, meaning the Leicester face a lot more football than most over the coming weeks. If a packed fixture schedule and the memory of how Leicester faded from the top four last season leads Rodgers to name a weakened team, then the Albion are well poised to take advantage.
Recent form
It is Brighton who come into the tie in better nick with four wins and two draws from their past six in all competitions. Leicester have three wins, two draws and a defeat in the same time period, although they had begun the calendar year with five consecutive victories.
The Foxes little recent blip has coincided with Jamie Vardy being ruled out by injury. Rather than terrorising Premier League defences, Vardy has spent the past few weeks having to pretend to be interested in Dancing on Ice when interviewed via video link by Holly and Phil as his wife Rebekah competes on the show.
Vardy returned to action with 30 minutes from the bench in the Foxes’ 0-0 draw against Wolves in the Mark McGhee Derby on Sunday. Rodgers has confirmed that his talisman striker will step up his quest for fitness by playing some part against Brighton; bad news for the Albion and even worse news for those of us who look forward to seeing Vardy’s take on a triple Axel into a Salchow jump every Sunday night.
Brighton v Leicester City head-to-head
The head-to-head reads 13 Brighton victories, 16 Leicester wins and seven draws. Of those 36 previous meetings, only one has come in the FA Cup.
It took place in the third round of the competition in the 1930-31 season with the top tier Foxes overwhelming favourites to see off Division Three South Brighton at Filbert Street.
Charlie Webb’s Albion had other ideas. Sespite being up against a Leicester front four consisting of three England internationals and their record 273-goal record scorer Arthur Chandler, it was the visitors who pulled off a massive upset by winning 2-1 through two Potter Smith goals in the first eight minutes of the second half.
Brighton’s head-to-head record with Leicester City
Last six meetings
• Leicester City 3-0 Brighton (Premier League, 13/12/20)
• Leicester City 0-0 Brighton (Championship, 23/06/20)
• Brighton 0-2 Leicester City (Premier League, 23/11/19)
• Leicester City 2-1 Brighton (Premier League, 26/02/19)
• Brighton 1-1 Leicester City (Premier League, 24/11/18)
• Brighton 0-2 Leicester City (Premier League, 31/03/18)
Games with Leicester have been about as much fun as tonsillitis since Brighton won promotion to the Premier League in 2017. The Albion are yet to win against the Foxes in seven attempts, picking up just two points out of 14.
You have to go back to April 2014 to find the last time Brighton beat Leicester and that victory should probably have an asterisks beside it to denote that the opposition were heavily under the influence of alcohol.
Leicester had clinched the Championship title three days earlier and their players played like a bunch of blokes who had been on a three day bender celebrating as the Albion romped to a 4-1 success at the King Power. Leonardo Ulloa scored two of the goals that night, convincing Nigel Pearson to pay £8 million for his services three months later.
Team news
Predicting a Graham Potter team is always the hardest part of any match preview and it is doubly difficult ahead of Leicester v Brighton. The Albion have an injury list longer than a Leonard Cohen song and those who played in the weekend draw at Burnley looked incredibly tired, hardly a surprise after the effort that went into winning against Spurs and Liverpool.
Nobody could blame Potter for making wholesale changes…. and yet there is a nagging sense that this is a real opportunity for Brighton to make a mark on the FA Cup.
That sizable gap to the relegation zone means that the Albion can probably afford to take one eye off the league and go for glory in the world’s greatest knockout competition.
It would require a bold team selection from Potter, but why not? He has done so already against Newport County and Blackpool; it would seem like a waste to then chuck in the reserves or the kids as soon as we meet a Premier League club.
What we do know is that Adam Lallana and Danny Welbeck will play some part as they return from injury. Being able to name two former England internationals in a weakened team is a sign of the sort of squad depth Potter enjoys. Hopefully, he uses it.
Leicester City’s danger men
Again, it is hard to name a danger man for a match preview when you do not know what sort of Leicester side Brighton will be coming up against.
Vardy is an obvious one as he always seems to score against the Albion and he is expected to play some part. Should the game make it all the way to penalties, then you could not blame any Brighton fan who decides to hide behind the sofa should Kasper Schmeichel be in goal for the Foxes, given his penalty saving record against the Seagulls.
Neal Maupay, Glenn Murray and Ashley Barnes have all had spot kicks kept out by Schmeichel. Barnes’ effort in 2012 in particular ended in complete farce as not only did he miss, but he then somehow blasted the rebound over despite being just six yards out from an open goal.
Leicester went onto win that clash with Tomasz Kuszczak not holding back with his feelings at the final whistle as him and Barnes nearly had a punch up on the pitch. Good times.
The betting value for Leicester v Brighton
Percy Tau is likely to play and that means that backing the Lion of Judah to score anytime at 9/2 is the bet of the day. Regular readers might have noticed we have tipped Tau to notch in every FA Cup match preview so far this season and he is yet to do so – but that has to end some time and why not for Brighton against Leicester? A Lion would eat a fox, after all.
An interesting subplot
Leicester were one of the clubs who Ben White was linked with last summer and they have suffered with their fair share of defensive injuries so far this season which could lead to a fresh approach in a few months time.
They would provide an interesting potential suitor too; a club who would give White the regular first team football he may not get at a Manchester United or Liverpool but who are also good enough to help him play Champions League football.
If White features against Leicester, it is a chance for him to impress Rodgers in person. Lord knows it cannot go any worse than his last audition in December as part of a backline who shipped three goals in under 45 minutes.
A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Leicester City away
Brighton having to borrow Leicester’s away kit at the King Power in 2009 will never not be funny – especially after Dick Knight had been so dismissive of supporters who questioned at the start of the season whether having a blue home kit, a blue away kit and a blue third kit was the best idea.
A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Leicester City away
Before Brighton’s first away game in the Premier League at the start of the 2017-18 season, we got chatting to some Australians on the concourse of the King Power’s away end who turned out to be Maty Ryan’s relatives.
They were keen not to miss any of Ryan’s second start in England but we told them not to worry, nothing would happen in the first five minutes of the match so they could take their time with their beers.
Seconds later there was an almighty cheer as Leicester took the lead. We were probably more hated than Terry when she tried to defraud Paul Robinson of all his money on Ramsay Street.
Leicester’s most famous fan
Many thousands of miles away from Brighton and it is Australia Open time at the minute, so we are going to throw in a bit of a curve ball for the famous fan section of our match preview and go with tennis player Katie Boulter who hails from Leicester.
Check out her Instagram, where she frequently posts photos of her at the King Power Stadium. That is the reason that WAB follow her, obviously.
Prediction
The dreaded prospect of a shoot out against Schmeichel was touched upon earlier in the preview and it would be the most typical outcome – 1-1 after 120 minutes and an exit on penalties with the Leicester number one saving every single Brighton spot kick.
