Talking Heads: Leicester-Palace Previews From Rodgers, Hodgson, Thomas & Van Aanholt
- Leicester City host Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Monday (8pm kick-off)
- The Foxes secured a 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture at Selhurst Park back in December
- Managers Brendan Rodgers and Roy Hodgson spoke to the national press earlier this week
- Luke Thomas and Patrick van Aanholt also previewed the fixture in the media
The Eagles travel to the East Midlands without a victory in three games against Leicester, while the Foxes got back to winning ways in the Premier League with a 3-0 triumph over West Bromwich Albion on Filbert Way on Thursday night.
While both managers have hosted pre-match press conferences to discuss their opponents, players from the two camps have also spoken to their clubs' respective media channels in the days leading up to the fixture...
Foxes manager Brendan Rodgers, looking ahead to Monday's encounter with Palace: "It’s another, equally difficult game. We have to recover over these next few days and if we can then put in a similar performance and be better in certain aspects, we’ll be delighted. Roy’s teams are always difficult to beat, very compact, very tight. They’ve got players that can hurt you, so we have to be really concentrated, but the players will look forward to it and give everything in the game. Every coach or manager or player, if you’re at the top, bottom or middle of the Premier League, you’re fighting for your life, you’re fighting for supporters. They’ve got top players, internationals, who are very, very dangerous and we have to be at the top of our game."
Roy Hodgson on tackling Rodgers, Leicester and Palace's tough run-in: "I enjoy locking horns with all the managers in the Premier League because it's a great place to be. We're quite happy and somewhat proud that we're still there going into a ninth season consecutively. We've made the best of our resources and, for the most part, we're capable of giving all the teams a good game and that's going to be our aim against Leicester on Monday night. We believe, from our past experiences, if we work hard, that we are capable of getting results against the Man Citys and Leicesters of the world."
Youngster Luke Thomas speaks to LCFC TV: "The confidence is great. Obviously, getting to the FA Cup Final is brilliant, but we’ve got games before that. We’re focusing on the Premier League and the gaffer made that clear after the game in the FA Cup. We’re focusing game by game. We’re still in the Premier League and we’ve still got things to challenge for, so we’ll go game by game and hopefully we can get the results we want. It’s always great to get a win. We go into each game wanting to win so we try our best and hopefully get the performance and get as many points as we can. It’s getting towards the end of the season now and there’s so many games still. You only get a four-day break, so we go again and hopefully, on Monday, we can get what we want to."
Former Foxes loanee and current Palace full-back Patrick van Aanholt, speaking to cpfc.co.uk, on the Eagles' squad ethos: "From the moment I signed here, I felt welcomed into the family. I want to carry on that family feeling. Hopefully I’ll stay here for many more years. I knew a couple of players already when I first signed, so that helped me when coming into the team. We all have our own characters, but we all laugh together and we all work together. We fight sometimes but that’s part of a team. You can fight as long as you make up. As long as everybody performs on the Saturday or the Sunday, that’s all that matters. We all have the same mentality on the pitch. Once we step on the pitch, we know what our game plan is."
All times BST.