Last term’s top two meet at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon on the back of contrasting Premier League results in the opening set of fixtures.
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Belgium striker Lukaku headed home Arouna Kone’s 22nd-minute cross and swept in from Barkley’s astute pass on the stroke of half-time before the England midfielder neatly curled in a third goal six minutes from time.
A finger injury keeps Julian Speroni sidelined so Alex McCarthy will start in goal for Palace, who will also be without Fraizer Campbell, Marouane Chamakh (both hamstring) and Kwesi Appiah (knee). “If it happens, then it is going happen, but we aren’t going to just buy”.
West Ham were shock victors over Arsenal in their opening game but rarely threatened to scale the same heights on this outing.
The Eagles eased to a 3-1 victory over Norwich City at Carrow Road in their first Premier League last Saturday.
Okazaki, a £7 million ($10 million) pre-season signing from German club Mainz, opened the scoring at Upton Park and Riyad Mahrez added Leicester’s second goal before half-time.
Ranieri, known as the “Tinkerman” for his reputation to constantly alter his team’s lineups, decided against any changes for the match against West Ham, defying one of his most defining features as a manager.
Andre Ayew wrapped up the points for the Welsh side early in the second half.
And it ended scoreless between Watford and West Brom at Vicarage Road.
“They were much livelier”. Danny Drinkwater spurned an opportunity to extend the Foxes’ lead, while Sakho was denied by Schmeichel at point blank range. Mahrez floated corner towards the back post found an unmarked Marc Albrighton who volleyed over.
Stoke had a number of opportunities but failed to take advantage of them, as Hugo Lloris pulled off save-after-save.
“Having established a full account of the incident in question and taken into consideration Jamie’s prompt apology, the club has issued the player with a substantial fine and prescribed a programme of diversity awareness training”, read the statement on the Foxes official webste.
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Leicester and United both have six points with Everton and Swansea City on four after wins over Southampton and Newcastle United respectively. The home side pretty much continued where they left off from against Chelsea last week, but were more solid defensively against a toothless Newcastle attack. “We had a great chance for the equalizer through Diafra Sakho, I was expecting us to score a second, but we didn’t”.
