Leicester City vs Nottingham Forest Preview

The Premier League resumes this Friday with Nottingham Forest making the short trip to the King Power Stadium to face Leicester City.

Leicester come into this tie on the back of a dramatic comeback win over fellow promoted side Southampton. After falling two goals behind, the Foxes fought back to win 3-2, handing them a second consecutive win in the Premier League.

They will now go into this game searching for a third successive top-flight victory, a win that will nudge them ahead in the historical H2H stakes which stands level at 41 wins apiece (D27).

Friday night is the 110th edition of this East Midlands derby and the hosts will undoubtedly hope this game will be a little more comfortable than their past home games, having won just one of the last four home H2Hs (D2, L1). There’s also an interesting sub-plot to this game, as Leicester boss Cooper was the man who ended Forest’s 20+ year wait to return to the Premier League. But after getting dismissed from the role in December 2023, he’d surely take great pleasure in securing Leicester a third-straight Premier League win for the first time since January 2021.

Meanwhile, the man who replaced Cooper in the Forest hot seat, Nuno Espírito Santo, would undoubtedly love to be the man to deny Cooper that privilege, but he runs into two glaring obstacles here. The first of those is that he’s banned from the touchline in this game as he was in Monday night’s 1-0 win against Crystal Palace. Secondly, a side managed by Nuno hasn’t scored a goal in their last four meetings with Leicester.

This doesn’t bode well for Forest. However, the fact that the visitors are unbeaten in their last six away league games (W4, D2) – their longest such run in the top flight since October 1995, suggests that poor return could end on Friday. The Tricky Trees will hope to extend that run and secure local bragging rights, particularly after winning the last H2H 2-0.

Other fixtures taking place this week in the Premier League Fixtures:

Premier League Table