Femi Solaja
Super Eagles duo of Kelechi Iheanacho and Wilfred Ndidi are in for a tough duel tonight when former champions, Leicester City, visit Elland Road home ground of fellow relegation threatened side, Leeds United.
Iheanacho last weekend helped his side to come from behind to beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 to snap a 10-match run without a victory in all competitions and keep alive their Premier League survival bid.
Leicester had claimed one point from their previous nine league games and the long-awaited victory at Wolves moved Dean Smith’s side out of the drop zone and up to 17th on 28 points — above Everton on goal difference.
Hosts Leeds are just one spot above Leicester at 16th place on 29 points from same numbers of matches. Technically, Leeds are also swimming in the dangerous relegation water. As they go Head-to Head this evening in a winner takes-it-all encounter, anything can happen!
The situation for both clubs is perilous and neither dare drop the match. A draw is also a temporary relief that may turn out bad news should both Everton and Nottingham Forest win their respective match-day 33 games.
According to Television Pundit, Danyal Khan, it is difficult pinpointing why Leicester City are in this hot water of the English topflight this season.
“It’s hard to pinpoint one reason why Leicester have had a difficult season. When you rewind to the start, they had to sell another one of their best players in Wesley Fofana. Although they brought in Wout Faes as a replacement, it did not feel like that was enough to reinforce a squad that had been together for a while under Brendan Rodgers without any real key additions.
“They did look to address this in January with Harry Souttar, Tete and Victor Kristiansen but they all joined a squad that was already low on confidence and struggling to get a string of results together. This has led to the team making a flurry of individual mistakes in the last few months which has piled on the poor results – that’s why when Dean Smith came in, one of the first aspects he looked at was raising morale and bringing positivity back into these players.”
Should Leicester, a former champion fail to weather the storm to survive the drop, it surely will be bad news for Super Eagles Portuguese gaffer, Jose Peseiro. After tonight’s game at Elland Road, only five more matches will determine the fate of Iheanacho and Ndidi.
