With European football returning to the King Power Stadium for the first time in four years, Brendan Rodgers will be hoping his Leicester City side can start their Europa League campaign with a win as Ukrainian side FC Zorya Luhansk take the long trip to the East Midlands.
Following two disappointing successive league defeats to West Ham and Aston Villa, the Foxes will be desperate to get back to winning ways.
But as the Foxes will know, there will be no easy games in the Europa League and will need to be at their very best in every game if they are to go far in this competition.
Leicester City
Going into the game it is expected that Rodgers will go with the same squad that took part in the loss to Villa.
Caglar Soyuncu (abductor), Wilfred Ndidi (abductor) and Ricardo Pereira (ACL) remain the only long-term absentees, whilst Jamie Vardy (calf) will miss the fixture but is expected to be fit for Sundays Premier League fixture vs Arsenal.
Islam Slimani who made his first Leicester appearance since January 2018 in the defeat to Villa will not be included as he is not in Leicester’s European 25-man squad.
Following an impressive debut against Villa, new signing Wesley Fofana is expected to start again whilst Cengiz Under could make his first start for the Foxes after he came off the bench against West Ham.
With James Maddison working his way back to full fitness, it will be interesting to see whether he starts the young Englishman or whether he sticks with the Belgian duo of Youri Tielemans and Dennis Praet.
Starting XI: Schmeichel; Castagne, Evans, Fofana, Justin; Mendy, Tielemans, Praet; Under, Iheanacho, Barnes
The Opposition
FC Zorya Luhansk currently play in the Ukrainian Premier league and last year finished third in the division qualifying straight into the group stage of the competition.
Before this year they have only qualified for the group stage on two previous occasions in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons but they have never progressed out of the group stage.
They are managed by former Ukrainian international Viktor Skrypnyk who is the most known in Germany for making 138 appearances for Werder Bremen between 1996 and 2004. He has been in charge of the club since 2011 and is their third longest serving manager.
A player to watch out for is 24-year-old Ukrainian winger Vladyslav Kocherhin. A left sided winger who has been at the club since 2017. Having contributed to a number of goals and assists so far this season, he could potentially be FC Zorya Luhansk’s biggest threat.
Starting XI: Shevchenko; Favorov, Veryndub, Abu Hanna, Ciganiks; Nazarnya, Yurchenko, Cvek, Kocherhin; Kabayev, Hladkyy
Prediction
The Foxes will be desperate to get off and running quickly and wouldn’t be surprised to see them to attack Luhansk’s goal from the first whistle.
Whilst you could argue that Luhansk have some quality, don’t expect Kasper Schmeichel to be very busy during the game.
This is a game Leicester will be expected to win if they want to go far into the competition and with the quality they have, expect them to come out of this with all three points.
3-0 Leicester.