What a difference a decade makes, ey? Cast your minds back to 2010 and it’s hard to dispute that Leicester City and Liverpool have made some of the biggest gains in the last ten years. A 2010-era Liverpool saw manager Roy Hodgson claiming that the Reds were in a relegation battle as they dipped into the bottom three for the first time in 46 years, whilst Leicester fell in the semi-finals of the Championship play-offs and had had a 35-year-old Nobby Solano playing for them.
Fast forward ten years and the two teams are involved in a top-of-the-table clash; with Club World Cup champions Liverpool romping home to their first-ever Premier League title and the Foxes with a Premier League of their own on their résumé. Leicester were decimated by fellow title-hopefuls Manchester City last weekend – with the Midlands club only having 36% possession in a 3-1 loss – but could they claw their way into a real title chase by handing Liverpool their first loss of the season?
Çağlar Söyüncü vs Mohamed Salah
The one-man Turkish barricade has been the stand-out defensive player of the season so far, but his last outing at the Etihad brought him down a peg as the sheer brilliance of Kevin De Bruyne made him look amateur. Söyüncü will be looking to redeem himself on Boxing Day, and who better to have to redeem yourself against than the most prolific and dangerous attack in the league – with 42 goals scored already by the league leaders.
Salah has cemented himself over the last few seasons as one of the most creative entities in the league and will look to rotate with Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino to create gaps in Leicester’s malleable defence, something the Turk has coped well with this season as a free-roaming and dogged defender. Söyüncü will have to mark tighter than he did against City, but also stay conscious as to not be caught by the Egyptian’s lightning-fast footwork.
Jamie Vardy vs Joe Gomez
Despite only slowly cementing himself as a regular starter, Joe Gomez was one of the standout and unsung performers as Liverpool became Club World Champions, dictating play in the primary third as an adroit passing centre-half. Gomez’s partnership with van Dijk as the central defenders in an ambitiously-attacking 4-3-3 has been concrete-strong this season when the English international has played; although both defenders lead a high defensive line.
Both elite-tier defenders will have to keep a particular eye on Jamie Vardy as the darting striker will look to pierce through gaps and latch onto balls behind the defence as he looks to increase his astonishing goal tally from 17 goals in 18 games.
Trent Alexander-Arnold vs Ben Chilwell
We may be closer to Christmas than Bonfire Night but if you want fireworks then look no further than Leicester’s left-hand side of the pitch. As two overly-attacking fullbacks in very offense-orientated systems, Chilwell and Alexander Arnold will have a fierce battle down their flank of the pitch; both in an attacking and defending sense, as either fullback will regularly charge forward to help the cavalry in attack – risking gaps opening at the back.
Trent is the most creative of the two, with the 21-year-old racking up 6 assists and averaging an astonishing 3.1 key passes a game, whilst Chilwell aims to overlap with Harvey Barnes and overload in the final third to mainly feed the ball to Jamie Vardy. Chilwell will need to stop his counterpart from getting space and floating in early lethal balls into the box whilst Alexander-Arnold needs to cut off Chilwell’s sprints forward; forcing him to offload the ball to the central midfield instead to slow down the attack.
