At A Glance
Aston Villa spring back into action at King Power Stadium on Saturday when they take on Leicester City.
With no game over the Easter weekend, Steven Gerrard’s side have had extra time to prepare for this fixture as they bid to stop a run of four straight losses.
Villa will be encouraged by a 2-1 success in the reverse fixture earlier in the season, while they also tasted success on their last visit to Leicester when Ross Barkley grabbed the winner.
Brendan Rodgers’ team have had a busy schedule of late, playing four times since Villa’s last outing against Tottenham.
Progress in the Europa Conference League last week was followed by a last-gasp 2-1 loss to Newcastle United and a 1-1 draw with Everton.
The Foxes, who are five points above Villa, have taken 27 of their 41 points from 15 home matches in the Premier League.
Standout Stats
Leicester lost this exact fixture 1-0 last season, with Barkley netting the winner in the 90th minute. They’ve not lost consecutive home league games to Aston Villa since April 1981.
Aston Villa are looking to complete the league double over Leicester for the first time since 2003/04, following their 2-1 win at Villa Park in early December.
Leicester City have won their last three home Premier League matches, last having a longer run between August and December 2019, when they won seven in a row.
After overperforming their xG by five goals in their first 16 Premier League matches under Steven Gerrard (26 goals, 21 xG), Aston Villa have scored just two goals from an expected goals total of 5.8 in their last four games, underperforming by almost four goals. Villa had eight shots on target in their 4-0 defeat to Spurs, their most in a Premier League game without scoring since May 2010 vs Blackburn (also eight).
Aston Villa haven’t had a single goalless draw in the Premier League this season – the last time they didn’t have any 0-0 draws in a single league campaign was in 1989/90. Meanwhile, the Villans are the only side without an away draw in the Premier League this season.
Leicester’s Harvey Barnes has been involved in five goals in his last four Premier League games against Aston Villa (4 goals, 1 assist). Against no side has he scored more in the division than he has Aston Villa (4), while only against Burnley (6) has he been involved in more goals for the Foxes.
The Last Meeting
Ezri Konsa netted a brace for the first time in his career to help Aston Villa overcome Leicester City at Villa Park back in December.
The centre-back got a faint touch on Emi Buendía’s header to pull the home side level after Barnes opened the scoring.
And Konsa struck with a header of his own to win the game after 54 minutes.
Team News
Steven Gerrard will be without Bertrand Traore for the encounter after the winger suffered a groin complaint in training this week.
Lucas Digne has had surgery on his collarbone after being forced off late on against Spurs last time out and also misses out, alongside Kortney Hause and Morgan Sanson.
The Boss
“They’re a good team. I think it will be interesting what team they decide to pick because they’ve changed a lot in terms of personnel going from game to Europe, they’ve obviously got a very busy fixture schedule. But, for me, the preparation has been about Aston Villa. The last two weeks has given us an opportunity to work on some things and continue some things that we’ve been doing ever so well. For me, the priority is how we perform on the day.”