Clarets looking for second win at the Walkers

They were relegated at the first time of asking and last season found life in the Championship a lot tougher than they expected. The ‘favourites for promotion’ tag was soon lost, so was manager Micky Adams and things have hardly improved to any extent since Craig Levein arrived from Hearts almost a year ago.

They ended last season in fifteenth place in the league and despite high hopes for this season they are in exactly the same position as we prepare for our third ever visit to the Walkers Stadium.

There’s been something of a changeover in personnel since the end of last season with players such as Ian Walker, David Connolly, Chris Makin, James Scowcroft, Nikos Dabizas, Keith Gillespie, Lilian Nalis and Jordan Stewart amongst the players who are now playing their football elsewhere.

Clearly there have been new signings, ten in total, with surprisingly only four of them coming directly from Scottish clubs. Levein raided Celtic for Ivory Coast defender Momo Sylla and goalkeeper Rab Douglas, and returned to his old club Hearts to sign Joe Hamill and Australian Patrick Kisnorbo.

Levein brought in a second Australian, goalkeeper Paul Henderson from Bradford to begin his raid on English clubs and then strengthened his defence with the capture of Blackburn’s Nils-Eric Johansson.

The next three signings all cost fees. Firstly they signed Peter Gilbert from Plymouth and followed that up on transfer deadline day by signing Elvis Hammond from Fulham (he was already there on loan) and nipping in ahead of Fulham to get Tranmere’s Iain Hume. Those last two deals were made possible because of the sale of Connolly to Wigan.

There’s been one further addition, the loan signing of Ryan Smith from Arsenal, the player who impressed so much during the recent Under-20 international at Turf Moor.

Despite all the signings they are still, as we said, in the bottom half of the table, but they are currently on a run of three games without defeat having drawn with Brighton and Derby prior to their 2-1 win at Watford on Saturday.

David Connolly and Mark de Vries are leading scorers this season in the league with four each. Connolly’s obviously all came in August before his move to Wigan, three of them in a 4-2 win at home to Stoke, de Vries also scored in that game.

Dutchman de Vries has set himself high goalscoring targets and readily admits he’s some way behind already with the four he’s got, he averaged a goal almost ever two games during his time with Hearts.

It’s a difficult one to call but with Palace coming up at weekend there is no doubt that we could do with another good result at the Walkers.

Click HERE to see all Leicester’s results this season.

There’s good news and bad news for Levein when it comes to naming his team tonight. The good news is that Alan Maybury is back after completing a suspension at Watford, he’s expected to come straight back into the side, but loan player Ryan Smith is still out having been sent off in an Arsenal reserve game prior to the loan deal a couple of weeks ago.

Leicester made five changes on Saturday to try and return to winning ways, it proved to be their first win in five weeks, and Levein is not expected to tamper much with that side other than to bring back Maybury for Richard Stearman.

Leicester are likely to line up: Rab Douglas, Alan Maybury, Dion Dublin, Patrick McCarthy, Nils-Eric Johansson, Momo Sylla, Stephen Hughes, Patrick Kisnorbo, Joe Hamill, Mark de Vries, Elvis Hammond. Subs from: Paul Henderson, Richard Stearman, Danny Tiatto, Joey Gudjonsson, Iain Hume, Patrik Gerrbrand.

Click HERE to see Leicester’s full squad.

Burnley look set to make just the one change from the side that lost to Leeds on Saturday and that is a changed forced on us following the injury to Graham Branch. He picked up a calf injury in a challenge that could so easily have seen Shaun Derry sent off and is not expected to have recovered in time for tonight’s trip to Leicester.

Steve Cotterill could go with the same side that played much of the game, with Chris McCann on the left hand side, but he has other options. He could return to a 4-4-2 formation and bring back Gifton Noel-Williams up front or, and I suspect more likely, he could start with Wade Elliott on the right and Garreth O’Connor on the left, as was the case at the beginning of the season.

That would leave a starting line up of: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, John McGreal, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, James O’Connor, Micah Hyde, John Spicer, Garreth O’Connor, Ade Akinbiyi. Subs from: Duane Courtney, Keith Lowe, Chris McCann, Karl Bermingham, Gifton Noel-Williams, Kyle Lafferty.

We went to Leicester last season four days after a superb performance had seen us collect a point in a 0-0 draw at Wigan. This was expected to be just as tough a game against Micky Adams’ side who were expected to do well.

It turned into another top away performance, another clean sheet, and another point from a 0-0 draw although this time we probably should have gone on and won it. We even played against ten men at the end of the game with Jordan Stewart being sent off for kicking out at Ian Moore.

Only four of those who started just over a year ago are expected to start tonight, Dublin for Leicester and three of our back four Duff, Sinclair and McGreal.

The teams were,

Leicester: Kevin Pressman, Chris Makin, Nikos Dabizas, Martin Keown, Jordan Stewart, James Scowcroft, Lilian Nalis, Gareth Williams (Scott Gemmill 45), Jason Wilcox (Danny Tiatto 66), David Connolly (Nathan Blake 70), Dion Dublin. Subs not used: Richard Stearman, Tommy Wright.

Burnley: Danny Coyne, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, John McGreal, Mo Camara, Ian Moore, Richard Chaplow, Tony Grant, Graham Branch, Jean-Louis Valois, Robbie Blake. Subs not used: Brian Jensen, Ryan Townsend, Joel Pilkington, Mark Yates, Matt O’Neill.