Was it really 3 months ago that the Premier League packed away its bombast and Nike balls?
The World Cup made it feel like football never left us, and suddenly the top-flight is back before we’re properly prepared.
And we have a proper cracker on our hand as Manchester United face Leicester City for the curtain-raiser.
Manchester United Team News: Summer signing Fred is expected to make his Manchester United debut on Friday but several other players are missing. Antonio Valencia, Marcos Rojo, Diogo Dalot, Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic are all injured, while Jose Mourinho will check on the fitness of those who returned late from the World Cup.
Leicester City Team News: Leicester manager Claude Puel must similarly decide whether to include Jamie Vardy and Harry Maguire. New signings Jonny Evans and James Maddison are available after injuries. Demarai Gray is also fit, while Ricardo Pereira and Rachid Ghezzal could be involved.
What The Manager’s are saying: Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho: “Now it’s serious stuff. It’s not anymore about friendlies, it’s not anymore about preparation, it’s about points. Any point can be crucial – you don’t know what is going to happen at the end of the season. You have to try your best to get points and even with the difficulties that we had with our pre-season, now I don’t think is the time to be speaking about that. It’s time just to say ‘tomorrow we have a Premier League match’ and we have to play to win it.”
Leicester manager Claude Puel: “We lost Riyad Mahrez, who was a very valuable player for us, so it was important to keep our best players and have good additions to the squad. We have to prepare for this season with good possibilities.”
Match Facts:Â Head-to-head
- Leicester have won only three of their 44 top-flight away matches against Manchester United. Their only Premier League victory at Old Trafford came in February 1998 when Tony Cottee scored the solitary goal.
- Manchester United have won 13 and drawn four of the subsequent 18 league meetings, with Leicester 5-3 victors at home in 2014.
Manchester United
- United have won their opening Premier League match on an unrivalled 17 occasions. Their only opening-day defeat at Old Trafford in 14 games came against Swansea in 2014.
- Jose Mourinho has never lost on the opening day of a Premier League campaign, winning eight and drawing one.
- Manchester United won all 21 Premier League matches in which they scored first last season.
- The 19 clean sheets kept by United in 2017-18 was the most in the division.
- However, Mourinho failed to win the league title in his second season at a club for the first time in his managerial career.
Leicester City
- The Foxes have won their opening Premier League fixture in only one of the past nine attempts – beating Sunderland 4-2 in 2015.
- They have not started a top-flight campaign with an away victory since beating Aston Villa in 1933.
- Leicester won five of their first eight league games under Claude Puel, but only recorded the same number of victories in their remaining 21 fixtures last season.
- Puel’s side scored with 13.3% of their attempts on goal in the league, a conversion rate bettered only by champions Manchester City in 2017-18.
- Jamie Vardy scored against each of the top six last season, the first player to do so against those teams in a single Premier League campaign. He became the first Leicester City player to score 20 goals or more in two top-flight seasons since Gary Lineker in 1983-84 and 1984-85.
Photo Credit: Getty
