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“I’m at Sadler’s Wells for some contemporary dance which, a quick perusal of the prog reveals, may prove to be ‘challenging’,” says Gary Naylor. “I can’t say I wasn’t warned...
“Anyway, which footballers would cut it as ballet dancers? All three that came to my mind are Dutch - Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten and Dennis Bergkamp. There must be more. Maybe Marta?”
With me it’s wingers who come to mind, one in particular.
“Maybe because it’s approaching the lunch hour here in the California Republic, but the top two fixtures on today’s list feature (West) Ham and Bologna are making me hungry,” says Peter oh. “I’m not sure if the football will be appetising, but at least I have some lunch sandwich suggestions. Buon appetito e Buonanotte!”
Team news
No surprise that West Ham are unchanged after that win at the Emirates. Ruud van Nisetlrooy makes three changes to the Leicester side that was thrashed by Brentford last Friday: James Justin, Jannik Vestergaard and Facundo Buonanotte replace Woyo Coulibaly, Caleb Okoli and Jordan Ayew.
West Ham (3-5-2) Areola; Todibo, Kilman, Cresswell; Wan-Bissaka, Soucek, Ward-Prowse, Alvarez, Scarles; Bowen, Kudus.
Substitutes: Fabianski, Soler, Mavropanos, Luis Guilherme, Ings, Rodriguez,
Emerson Palmieri, Ferguson, Irving.
Leicester (4-2-3-1) Hermansen; Justin, Faes, Vestergaard, Kristiansen; Ndidi, Soumare; Buonanotte, El Khannouss, De Cordova-Reid; Vardy.
Substitutes: Stolarczyk, Coady, Okoli, Winks, Mavididi, Ayew, Daka,
Skipp, Thomas.
Referee Anthony Taylor.
Preamble
If you’re of a certain age, League Ladders are probably among your happier childhood memories. They were an essential part of every football season – well, least until November when you realised your team wasn’t going to win the league or get promoted and it became far too much hassle.
By the standards of modern life, they look a bit limited. Take tonight’s match behind West Ham and Leicester City. The League Ladders – assuming you hadn’t given up in November - would show that it’s 16th v 19th in the table. But they wouldn’t tell us that these teams, just three places apart near the bottom of the Premier League, live in different worlds.
West Ham are 13 points clear of Leicester and cautiously optimistic about their future under Graham Potter, especially after Saturday’s win at Arsenal. Leicester, by contrast, are trapped in a doom loop and seem almost certain to go down.
Still, you never know. The only reason Leicester could produce the Premier League’s greatest miracle in 2015-16 was because of an extraordinary escape 12 months earlier. At one stage in 2014-15 Leicester took two points from 14 games; then, after another miserable run of two points in eight games, they found themselves bottom of the table with nine games to go, seven points off safety.
A 2-1 win over – yep – West Ham was the start of an astonishing run: seven wins out of nine, and a cosy 14th-place finish. As unlikely as it seems right now, there are precedents for a Leicester revival. But it needs to start pretty soon.
Kick off 8pm.
