Leicester City v Palace

The Walkers Stadium, Monday 7.45pm

Story so far

Leicester are another side that have experienced the manager merry-go-round - a phenomenon which plagues the top two divisions of English football.

Milan Mandaric is a man determined to be successful yesterday, which is no surprise considering he's only eight months off of his 70th Birthday.

The Serbian took control of the club less than a year ago but is already on to his fifth manager - no surprise considering their lack of good results.

However, the departure of their previous manager, Gary Megson, was due to Bolton coming in for him and not a sacking, which is rather surprising [the fact that he didn't get sacked and the fact that a Premier league club would want his services].

The last time that Leicester had more than one win in a month was way back in October, where they recorded an amazing two wins for the period.

Interestingly, all but one of the Fox's six League wins have ended 2-0.

Team news

Shaun Derry is set to keep his place in midfield after making his loan move from Leeds United full time.

New boy Neil Danns may have to start on the bench after joining from Birmingham City last week as Eagles boss Neil Warnock may keep with a winning team.

DANNY BUTTERFIELD came through a reserve game last week without any reaction to his groin injury, while Paul Ifill could return to the squad. Leicester striker DJ Campbell is available after a pelvis injury, while Stephen Clemence is almost fit from calf problems. Patrick Kisnorbo returns after serving his a one-match ban.

Quotes

Roy Hodgson

"They've spent a lot of money, they've got a bigger squad than ours, and they've got a great stadium.

"Their squad is probably as good as anybody's in the league and they've got the second best defensive record in the league so there's not a lot wrong there.

"I've met Milan a few times regarding jobs and he's ambitious. He's like me in that he wants to get there yesterday.

"People also say that me and Ian are very similar. Other than Ian being a lot uglier than me, we're both passionate, we both care about our teams and we've both done it the hard way.

"If we get a little bit complacent we know we're going to get our bottom's spanked so we have to keep things in perspective.

"It's the same squad that struggled at the beginning of my time here and we all know what football's like.

"Around the corner there's a bad run and when you're going badly you hope a good run will come as well.

"The pleasing thing for me is that I'm in charge of a bunch of level-headed lads - we've got no big-time Charlies.

"Noboody talks about promotion or play-offs. We just talk about getting more points on the board and hopefully we can keep the run going."

Tim Breacker

He said: "In this division anyone can beat anyone at any time. If you are on top of your game there is no-one in this division you should fear. You will see surprising results all the time."

He added: "We have to make sure we are doing things well. In our last home game we felt that we had a good all-round performance in terms of creating chances, working hard to get it back and if we have that again we will see where we go.

"It shows to our players what can be achieved if we can get that going."

"It will be a good chance for us to see where we are at with the improvements we have made," he said.

"We are looking forward to it. It will be a different challenge."

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Leicester City - league stats

Position	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
20th	28	6	13	9	31

Full league table

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Leicester City - current form

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
5	1	2	2	4	6

Full form table

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Our away record v Leicester City

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
25	5	10	10	28	37

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Last five results

Date	Type	Home Team	Score	Away Team
18/08/2007	League	Crystal Palace	2 - 2	Leicester City
10/03/2007	League	Crystal Palace	2 - 0	Leicester City
21/10/2006	League	Leicester City	1 - 1	Crystal Palace
07/04/2006	League	Leicester City	2 - 0	Crystal Palace
02/01/2006	League	Crystal Palace	2 - 0	Leicester City

All time results

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One to watch

Steve Howard

His only goal in the Premiership was against Manchester United in their 4-1 drubbing of Derby, but Steven Howard has the quality to score goals on a regular at this level.

The majority of his success came at Luton where he scored almost a goal in every two appearances but his record of 1 in 3 for Derby is still fantastic for a target man.

Like Scowcroft, he may not have the pace to trouble defenders but his hold up and link up play is second to none (well, maybe second to our Scowie).

Howard has always been good at winning everything in the air and scoring a few as well with some good movement in the box.

Last meeting

Palace 2-2 Leicester City

Saturday August 18 2007

Palace: Speroni, Lawrence, Hudson, Cort, Fonte (Butterfield, 46), Craig, Green (Kuqi, 70), Soares, Kennedy (Freedman, 70), Scowcroft, Morrison

Subs not used: Flinders, Martin

Goals: Green 33, Morrison 90

Leicester City: Fulop, N'Gotty, Kisnorbo, McAuley, Clarke , Newton (Chambers, 82), Clemence, Wesolowski, Sheehan (Porter, 55), Campbell, De Vries (Hume, 46)

Subs not used: Henderson, Kishishev

Bookings: Clemence, Kisnorbo

Goals: Campbell 63, Kisnorbo 87

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