Andy King has challenged the Leicester City players to “make a real statement” by winning at Liverpool on Saturday. The Premier League champions travel there on the back of a mixed start to the season, picking up four points from their opening three matches, yet King sees the visit to the newly revamped Anfield as a chance to lay down a marker.
Islam Slimani, the club-record signing from Sporting Lisbon, is likely to make his debut before a landmark week for Leicester, who travel to Belgium to take on Club Brugge next Wednesday in their first Champions League game. Leicester’s immediate focus, however, is on Anfield, where Claudio Ranieri’s players hope to follow up their home victory over Swansea before the international break with another positive result.
“After last season it was always going to be hard,” King said. “After a few games, whatever we did, people were going to compare to last season and say it’s a slow start. But now we have our first win, we can hopefully get up and running. Winning at Anfield would be a real statement. We know it’s going to be tough because they’ve had a good start themselves, but we know if we play the way we can, then we can be a match for anyone.”
King, who started for Wales in their 4-0 World Cup qualifying win over Moldova on Monday, watched Liverpool’s performance at Arsenal on the opening weekend of the season and was hugely impressed. Yet Jürgen Klopp’s side lost 2-0 at Burnley the following week, in a game where Sam Vokes, King’s international team-mate, scored the first goal.
“I spoke to Sam and he said they were a really good team. I know Burnley won 2-0 but he said [Liverpool] had 81% possession, so we know what they’re about. Jürgen Klopp is all about high energy, they’ve signed well and have good players, so it’s going to be a tough game. Coupled with the fact they have got the new stand, they’re going to want to win their first home game this season. But we know with the team we have, we can go there and cause an upset.”
Slimani’s arrival gives Ranieri plenty of options up front and it will be intriguing to see how the Leicester manager accommodates the Algerian in a team where Jamie Vardy leads the line. “Riyad [Mahrez] has said a lot of good things about him,” King said. “We’ve seen his record in Portugal so hopefully he can be a big signing for us. The more quality players we can have in the squad, then it’s going to help everyone.”
Not that King subscribes to the view that Slimani could take some of the pressure off Vardy to deliver the goals. “I don’t think Vards feels the pressure,” he said. “He’s off the mark now after people saying he was in a drought after just two games without scoring. Now he has scored in his third. I’m sure if he can score one in every two or three games then he will be happy.”
