Clarets ready to outfox Leicester

Those games against the supposed bigger teams in the league are over and we now face our five remaining games against two teams in mid-table and three in the bottom six staring with Leicester tomorrow, the team that has just climbed above us after months at the bottom of the league.

It's not reached the now or never stage yet but we really are going to have to get a shift on if we are to get the points we need to stay in this league. When we beat QPR at home on the second Saturday of 2015, we sat in 17th place with 20 points from 21 games.

Since that win, we've picked up just six points from eleven games, and that's a lower return than any other club in the Premier League during that period. We've only beaten Man City whilst picking up points against West Brom, Chelsea and Spurs.

But all the bottom clubs are down there. QPR have won just one point more whilst Newcastle have both picked up eight points with Hull and Sunderland next on nine points.

Matt Taylor is fit again after the most frustrating injury of his career

Everyone spoke about the nightmare run when someone with a warped sense of humour gave us a run of games against the entire top eight in succession. That ended with Arsenal with the remaining games kicking off last week against an Everton side rejuvenated in the league since their European exit.

Now it is Leicester, who arrive at Turf Moor having won their last three games., but we do have the edge on them over the years in the league. Our first ever league fixture against them was in the 19th Century, as you will see by clicking on the link at the bottom of this preview.

Tomorrow will be the 100th league match between the two clubs. In the previous 99 we've won 39, drawn 30 and lost 30 although the last win came in game 91 which was the 3-0 win in August 2010.

Sean Dyche has been able to include the experienced Matt Taylor on the bench for the last two games. Taylor kicked off the season in the side but lost his place to an achilles injury after just three Premier League appearances which required surgery and kept him out of the reckoning until two weeks ago.

He said this week: "It was probably the most frustrating injury I've ever had in my career. It was tough because you want to play football and your body won't allow you to do so, but it was an injury that needed to be dealt with and thankfully we have done now."

Taylor looked sharp when he came on at Goodison last week and looking ahead to the weekend, he said: "Without making too much of a big deal of it, it's another big game and it's obviously magnified with the position of both teams in the league at the moment.

"It's a huge game, but ultimately there are only three points that either of us can go for and we'll be obviously wanting to take these three points at home."

He added: "I've been in a situation like this previously and we only want to think about the next game and not about what's coming up later on. Leicester have hit a bit of form at the moment, but ultimately it's about how we are going to approach the game and we need to focus on what we're doing."

The big question is who will replace Ashley Barnes in the Burnley team. He has become the first Burnley player to be suspended this season after his red card last week at Everton; our first red card since Michael Duff's at Huddersfield in November 2013.

Michael Kightly and Ross Wallace are surely both strong candidates as is Stephen Ward who has played in that advanced role on the left previously for Wolves. There's also Taylor and it wouldn't surprise me to see him get back into the team.

Our team could be: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, George Boyd, Scott Arfield, David Jones, Matt Taylor, Danny Ings, Sam Vokes. Subs from: Matt Gilks, Steven Reid, Michael Keane, Stephen Ward, Fredrick Ulvestad, Ross Wallace, Michael Kightly, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Marvin Sordell.

Leicester won the Championship last season, going up automatically with ourselves, but they are a bigger and better club than us and this season they have improved whilst we are not as good as we were last season.

That's the sort of stuff we heard from the disrespectful Nigel Pearson after a late Ross Wallace goal had given us a point there earlier this season. It's nothing new down at Leicester, the words coming out on their local BBC Radio station in December 2013, again after a draw, were equally as disrespectful to our club.

Pearson, at the time, must have thought his team were going to be challenging for a Champions League place after winning two of their first five matches, but the Burnley draw was the second in a run of thirteen games without a win and more recently they had another run of eight games without a win.

They did look odds on for the drop, but suddenly they've found some form. They, somewhat fortunately, beat West Ham 2-1 at home with an Andy King winner on 86 minutes and then won at 3-2 at West Brom with a stoppage time goal from Jamie Vardy. Last week they beat Swansea 2-0 with the second of those goals, again scored by King, coming on 89 minutes. So  we need to beware that this is a team very capable of scoring late goals.

Back in November, when we won at Stoke, it took us off the bottom of the Premier League. QPR replaced us for a week before Leicester took occupancy on 29th November and remaining there until last week when we replaced them.

Have they moved up just at the right time? They are still in the relegation positions with us and QPR, but they have two points more than us and had they conceded one less goal or scored one more they would not be outside that bottom three.

Any team with David Nugent in its line up is always a threat to us. He scored in both games last season although wasn't on the mark earlier this season at Leicester. Even so, the fact that he remains doubtful after missing out last week having picked up a calf injury in the warm up before the win against Swansea, cannot be considered bad news for us.

Leo Ulloa, the former Brighton striker, is their leading goalscorer with eight goals and, should Nugent not make it, he could play in a three man attack with Jamie Vardy and Kramarić.

Leicester last week lined up: Kasper Schmeichel, Robert Huth, Marcin Wasilewski, Wes Morgan, Jeff Schlupp, Andy King, Esteban Cambiasso, Marc Albrighton, Leo Ulloa, Jamie Vardy, Andrej Kramarić. Subs: Mark Schwarzer, Ritchie De Laet, Paul Konchesky, Matty James, Tom Lawrence, Riyad Mahrez.

Last Time They Were Here

Last season's home game against Leicester was played on 29th March. Leicester arrived at Turf Moor already having won 82 points from 38 games. We'd played one more and had three less points. By then were already 11 points clear of QPR, who had a game in hand, and 13 points clear of Derby, and so this was surely going to be the game between the final top two with us probably needing to win to keep alive our hopes of winning the league.

We lost the game 2-0 and, although Leicester deserved the win on the day, I think it is fair to say that things didn't really go our way at all.

David Edgar came on for Sam Vokes

Within no time at all Sam Vokes went down injured. He was finally substituted in the eighth minute and with no strikers on the bench it was David Edgar who came on. When Leicester were themselves forced to replace Jamie Vardy later in the half they were able to replace him with another striker in Chris Wood.

Within a minute of that change, the two substitutes played a vital role as Leicester went in front. A clearance from their own box was picked up by Wood. He played it to David Nugent who was far too easily able to go past Edgar and score.

There was a penalty claim right on half time that referee Chris Foy, wrongly, ignored and when Leicester scored their second through Wood with twelve minutes remaining the whole ground could see the foul on Duff, with the exception of Foy.

Over the 90 minutes there were so many occasions when Foy got things wrong that went against us, but overall the result was a correct one and at that meant, at the final whistle, their lead was six points.

Derby won, they beat Charlton 3-0 to reduce our lead over them to seven points, whilst QPR could only draw 1-1 at home against struggling Blackpool with Blackburn's Goodwillie equalising after former Blackburn player Junior Hoilett had given QPR the lead.

We were still ten points clear of both Derby and QPR. Why on earth were people hitting the panic button?

The teams were;

Burnley: Tom Heaton, Chris Baird, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Junior Stanislas (Ross Wallace 62), Scott Arfield, David Jones, Michael Kightly (Keith Treacy 79), Sam Vokes (David Edgar 8), Ashley Barnes. Subs not used: Alex Cisak, Kevin Long, Danny Lafferty, Brian Stock.

Leicester: Kasper Schmeichel, Ritchie De Laet, Wes Morgan, Marcin Wasilewski, Jeff Schlupp, Anthony Knockaert, Danny Drinkwater, Matty James, Riyad Mahrez (Dean Hammond 88), David Nugent (Gary Taylor-Fletcher 72), Jamie Vardy (Chris Wood 34). Subs not used: Conrad Logan, Liam Moore, Andy King, Lloyd Dyer.

Previous Games against Leicester

Click HERE to see all previous results against Leicester