With Arsenal claiming top spot courtesy a 2-0 victory over Bournemouth, Leicester City will want to go back to the English Premier League summit when they host Manchester City at the King Power Stadium on Monday.
Leicester have been the team of the first half of the Premier League season, with the likes of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez setting those pulses racing with some outstanding football. However, their momentum and a long unbeaten run was derailed by Liverpool on Boxing Day, with Christian Benteke scoring the winner in a 1-0 win for Jurgen Klopp's men.
While Arsenal failed to take advantage of Leicester's slipup in their late game on Boxing Day, Arsene Wenger's men moved a point clear after easing past Bournemouth on Monday. Only a win for Leicester will take them back to the top of the table, with Arsenal holding a better goal difference.
"The motivation is high because you're playing one of the teams that can win the league like Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea," Leicester's manager Claudio Ranieri told the club's official website. "We have to put in a very good performance to win that.
"They have so much talent but it's important that we recover our energy and show our football. With our fans behind us at home we have one player more."
Leicester will need to be at their counter-attacking best to beat Manchester City, who bounced back from their defeat to Arsenal with the thumping of Sunderland. Manchester City will still be the pick of many to go on and win the title, purely because of the strength of their squad, and a win on Tuesday will take them level on points with Leicester and only a point adrift of Arsenal.
"Leicester are top because they deserve to be," Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini said. "They have very important players in a very good moment with high performance.
"They beat Chelsea and drew against United -- we must consider they will not collapse because they lost [to Liverpool]. We knew it was not easy for them to beat Liverpool away so we were confident that we could reduce the gap at the top if we beat Sunderland.
"Leicester couldn't win and now we have an important game to finish the first half of fixtures."
Manchester City, though, will have to beat Leicester and a few more opponents after that without Vincent Kompany, who limped off in the Sunderland win after only returning from a considerable layoff. Manchester City have a stupendous defensive record this season with Kompany in the team and the Manchester City defender would have been a key component in preventing Vardy and Mahrez from doing what they do best.
"Both of them are performing very well but I don't think they can do it if the whole team are not having a good performance," Pellegrini added when asked if he has special plans to stop Vardy and Mahrez. "They are important players but we must think about a lot of different things -- not just two players. We must think about Leicester City.
"We hope we can beat them but it will be a tough game."
Where to Watch Live
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Leicester vs Manchester City is set to begin at 7.45 pm GMT (1.15 am IST, 2.45 pm ET). Star Sports 4 and Star Sports HD4 will broadcast the match live in India, while the online live streaming options are on Hotstar and Starsports.com.
The English Premier League match will be shown live in the UK on BT Sport 1, while Leicester City vs Manchester City can also be watched online by live stream on Watch BT Sport.
Watch Leicester play Man City live in the US on NBC Sports Network, with the live stream option on NBC Sports Live Extra. Audience in Canada can watch the action live on Sportsnet and Watch Sportsnet.
Australia viewers can watch the EPL game live on Fox Sports 4, while the online live streaming options are on Fox Sports On Demand and Foxtel Play.
