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Match Preview: Leicester vs Brighton & Hove Albion

The Foxes host the Seagulls at the KP Stadium for the first time since the Championship days.

Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

Leicester City (0-0-1) vs Brighton & Hove Albion (0-0-1)

Saturday 10:00 AM ET

The King Power Stadium

After a thrilling season opener, that unfortunately went the way of Arsenal, Leicester now play hosts to Brighton and Hove Albion as the King Power Stadium opens it’s doors for the first time this season.

How to watch

This will be first of at least three matches for Leicester on NBC’s new platform NBC Sports Gold. It does cost $50 and is a bit of a money grab from NBC, but you will get to watch every match going forward regardless of live tv selection or not. This is a streaming service so look for it in your app stores or be prepared to rig your computer to your tv to watch it on the big screen.

The Competition

As many of us already, with Brighton back in the Premier League now we get to see one of our more favorite and familiar faces from our Championship days, Anthony Knockaert. I expect him to get a start, but should he come off the bench as he did against Manchester City, it will be to a chorus of applause.

Brighton had a fine match against Manchester City, holding on to a clean sheet until the 70th minute when Sergio Aguero broke the deadlock. Their hopes of at least splitting the points came to an end when Lewis Dunk put it into his own net from a David Silva chance. The Seagulls only managed 32% possession against the blue of Manchester, so it will be interesting to see how the Foxes handle a lion’s share of possession, or if they intend to soak up the pressure as they did versus Arsenal.

Anthony Knockaert will visit his old stomping grounds on Saturday
Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

The Foxes

To avoid a thousand page essay on what happened last match, I’m just going to focus on the positives. Both Shinji Okazaki and Jamie Vardy scored in the same match for the very first time. That may sound shocking, but it is true, they have never scored in the same match in the Premier League or Champions League.

Harry Maguire was pretty much amazing all match. He assisted Shinji’s goal, had three blocks, three clearances, two interceptions and won two tackles. Kasper Schmeichel was reliable as ever with six saves and, to be fair, was never at fault for any of those goals.

As far as fitness goes, we will be once again without the services of Danny Drinkwater and Vicente Iborra. Kelechi Iheanacho is recovering from a toe injury. Robert Huth played 60 minutes with the U-23’s and returned to training. Papy Mendy played with the U-23’s today.

The Lineups

Here are the predicted starting 11’s for each side.

The selected official for this match is Lee Probert.

Brighton & Hove Albion’s predicted starting 11
Leicester City’s predicted starting 11

The Prediction

I think Leicester take an early lead from a Marc Albrighton cross to either Vardy or Shinji. Should that happen we’ll relish the opportunities we get from our counter attack and win comfortably 3-0.