Leicester v Wolves Match Preview [LIVE]

Date: Saturday 18th August
Venue: King Power Stadium
Kick-off: 15.00

The game will be shown live on BeIN Sports HD5

Live @ http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewLiveArticle/394740
One match ban enabled

When Leicester gained promotion to the Premier League in 2014/2015 they narrowly avoided returning to the Championship. The following season however, under the leadership of Claudio Ranieri, they stormed to the league title, winning by 10 points from second placed Arsenal.
Since then they have finished 12th and 9th with Ranieri making way for the brief tenure of Craig Shakespeare. The current manager Claude Puel has been in charge since October 2017.

After losing last week to an injury hit and under strength, Manchester United, The Foxes will be looking to bounce back this week in front of their home crowd.
Having spent almost £103m in the summer transfer window (the third highest outside of the top 6), Leicester have certainly made a statement of intent. Of the 7 players brought in, one has gone out on loan and of the other 6, 5 were included in the squad against Man U. Madison and Pereira were starters, Ward and Evans unused subs and Ghezzal making a 63rd minute appearance from the bench.

Wolves opening game at home to Everton finished in a 2-2 draw with Wolves twice coming back from being a goal down. If the final score line was an indication of the character within the Wolves squad, the game itself was an indication of the nervous start the Wolves team made to their Premier League season. There were under par performances from several of the star players particularly in the second half which Everton played with 10 men following the 43rd minute sending off of Phil Jagielka. The standout players for Wolves were midfield maestro Ruben Neves, and newly acquired Mexican international striker, Raul Jimenez. Neves once again showed his talent for netting from outside the penalty area with a sublime free kick as a result of the Jagielka foul. For the second goal Neves found the head of the busy Jimenez with pinpoint accuracy and the Mexican made no mistake in scoring his first goal in the Premier League.

Wolves summer spending was somewhat more modest than Leicester’s having spent £49.5m to add 10 players to the squad. 4 of those were players that were on loan last season. Of the other 6, 4 were involved in the Everton game. Besides aforementioned Raul Jimenez, Portugal Internationals Rui Patricio and Joao Moutinho and Spanish international Jonny Castro Otto were all in the starting 11.
Wolves fans will be hoping to see late comer Leander Dendoncker and currently injured Adama Traore playing a part at The King Power on Saturday.

Oh, and to finish on an interesting point, Neves has scored seven goals for Wolves and seven spells his name backwards!

Gem’s prediction 1-1