Leicester City defender Christian Fuchs has warned his team-mates to expect a battle when they face struggling Newcastle at the King Power Stadium on Monday night.

The Foxes go into the game sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League with only nine matches of the season remaining.

A win would at the very least maintain their five-point gap to their rivals with another game chalked off, but Newcastle arrive knowing that three points would take them out of the relegation places above Norwich and North-East rivals Sunderland.

The Magpies will almost certainly be boosted by the arrival of Rafael Benitez to take over the St James’ Park hot-seat on Friday on the back of former England coach Steve McClaren’s sacking earlier in the day.

And Fuchs, who has dismissed the claims of critics that the players will now start to feel the pressure of being in a title battle and insisted that ‘it’s simply a lot of fun’, warned that they cannot be complacent against Newcastle.

He told the club’s website: “It will be a big fight but we have such a good team and we have the 12th man that has our back all the time even when we’re a goal down, so we’re just looking forward to this game.

“When you have been in this situation you learn how these teams think.
We know they’ll be desperate and will be fighting for every point.

“Of course when you get a point from a team at the top it’s a big point so we expect them to be really tough and to have a really tough game.

“We’re at home though so we want to give our best like every game and try to keep the three points.”

Leicester, who are 1.91 to win the Premier League, can be backed at 1.62 to win the game. Newcastle are on offer at 5.50 to secure the three points and the draw is at 4.00.