Leicester look to progress in the FA Cup as they face Birmingham City

Leicester are currently in a bad patch only being able to pick up five points in their last five games and will be looking to overturn the luck and progress through in the FA Cup.

Last time out for Leicester, they played in the Premier League against Norwich. The score ending in favour of the Canaries. A 1-0 win for Daniel Farke’s men was seen as an upset. Jamal Lewis’ goal was enough to secure the three points for Norwich.

In the FA Cup fourth round, the Foxes got past Brentford. Kelechi Iheanacho’s goal in the fourth minute of the game saw Leicester hold off Brentford right to the final whistle to win the game 1-0.

Birmingham City faced QPR on Saturday in the Championship with the sides occupying 14th and 15th in the table. The game was a slow paced game, but Scott Hogan was able to find an opener for Birmingham City in the 24th minute. The game finally went up a gear in the second-half. Marc Pugh and Jordan Hugill netted for QPR to tip the game in their favour. In the 81st minute, a Scott Hogan goal saved the Blues as they took a point from the fixture.

The Blues faced Coventry in the fourth round of the cup with a replay being needed after a 0-0 draw in the first game. The second game provided more excitement.

After the game going the full 90 minutes with the sides not seperated at 1-1, thanks to an own goal from Marc Roberts giving Coventry City the lead and Harlee Dean securing extra-time when he scored in the 92nd minute. Maxime Biamou scored in the 114th minute to set a dream derby for Leicester fans with the dreams being crushed when Jeremie Bela scored in the 120th minute. The Blues would go on to win the penalty shootout 4-1.

Team news

Leicester are without top scorer Jamie Vardy due to an ongoing calf problem.

Daniel Amartey remains sidelined with an ankle injury, but Wilfred Ndidi is available after making his comeback from a knee problem at Norwich.

Birmingham winger Jeremie Bela is out after injuring his hamstring in the Blues’ draw at Queens Park Rangers.

Manager Pep Clotet has confirmed Blues teenager Jude Bellingham will be rested.

Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers spoke about confidence and especially picking up good results.

“The game’s about confidence and when you lose some games, the confidence can be dented. That’s the management of it. We have to pick players up whose confidence may have dropped.

“We have to learn from that and that is the mentality you need to play in the position of the table you want to be in.

“This is the great challenge that we have now going into this last part of the season.”

Birmingham manager Pep Clotet talked about the fans being a major factor in their clash against Leicester in the FA Cup.

“I hope that it is going to be a good footballing game. They will be clinical, we need to make sure we take our chances when we get them and make them count.

“Tomorrow is totally about our fans. They were immense at Millwall and even better at QPR. We felt their support a lot.

“We managed to do enough in both games to take three points. Tomorrow we have over 5,000 at Leicester and we need to be all in it together.”

Head-to-head

Leicester have progressed from all six of their FA Cup ties with Birmingham City, with this the first such meeting since the third round in 1998-99. In all competitions, Leicester are unbeaten in their past five meetings with Birmingham (W3 D2), with this their first meeting since a Championship match in January 2014 (2-1).

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