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Newcastle United vs Leicester City: Dean Smith explains how the Foxes can get out of the relegation zone

With Newcastle requiring only one more point to clinch a top four place, St James’ Park is expected to be electric for this fixture - not a time to play them at home.

By Karthik Raman | May 22, 2023 | 3 Min Read

It is starting to look extremely worrying for Leicester City and their supporters at the bottom of the table. With not many games left to be played, Leicester’s dream of staying in the Premier League is under massive threat. Languishing in the bottom three places, the Foxes need some quick points to move out of the relegation zone. However, their next match is away to in-form Newcastle United. With Newcastle requiring only one more point to clinch a top four place, St James’ Park is expected to be electric for this fixture – not a time to play them at home.

However, that is the challenge Leicester City have in their hands. They must get something out of that match to keep their hopes of staying in the Premier League alive for one more season. Leicester manager Dean Smith previewed the challenge and spoke about what to expect from this fixture. “Newcastle have had fantastic season. They’ve got a fantastic head coach who I was coming up against in League 1 nine or 10 years ago. I’ve a lot of respect for Eddie [Howe] and what he has done there,” Smith was quoted as saying by their club’s website.

He added: “Going there, it’ll be a very partisan fanbase that will make it extremely hard for the first 15-20 minutes if they get their tails up. Our job is to stifle that as much as we can, whether that’s with the ball or without the ball, making them go where we want them to go, or going and taking the lead to try and win the game. I can’t control what happens at any other games. It might affect what we have to do at Newcastle, but we only have to concentrate on this game at Newcastle and get the win. It’s our cup final now and we know what we have to do.”

We need at least a point from Newcastle: Dean Smith

Dean Smith then spoke about how much he dislikes to play on Monday night at this stage of the season. “I don’t like playing on the Monday after the other games, especially when there’s only two games to go. I don’t want to have to suddenly change tactics from what I’ve been working on for four or five days. But one thing we do know is that we need at least a point from Newcastle. It’s out of our hands because if other teams get the results, there’s nothing we can do. If we get the performance that we’re capable of and we minimise mistakes, then it’s not a problem,” he elaborated.

Leicester City are heading into this fixture on the back of losing their last two games. The manager spoke about how difficult those results have been on his players. “I think they are demoralised by the last couple of results. Before that, we had an upturn in performances. It’s very quickly forgotten but I’ve only been here for six games and I thought four of the performances in that were quite good,” he further added.

“But the goals that we’ve given away in the last few games haven’t been good enough and that’s something that we’ve been working on. We made it difficult (for teams) when we came into the Club and that’s what we have to do now – go back to that. Be hard to beat first and foremost but show our qualities when we get the ball. They are down because of the last two results and the position that we’re in. They do care. I see that from what they give every day in training and what they are giving in matches.”