CHRIS LAKEY Dion Dublin may be keeping mum in the great Peter Grant versus the fans debate - but the veteran striker was pulling no punches when he summed up the task facing the City team tonight.

CHRIS LAKEY

Dion Dublin may be keeping mum in the great Peter Grant versus the fans debate - but the veteran striker was pulling no punches when he summed up the task facing the City team tonight.

“I am not going to talk about the fans or individual players or what they have to say about the fans,” said Dublin in the wake of Grant's comments after the 1-1 draw at home to Hull on Saturday which sparked such ferocious debate.

“In my eyes you have to just get on with it. I think results will breed the right atmosphere. At the moment we let ourselves down on Saturday and they have every right to voice their opinion. We were disappointed, and we are still disappointed, but we have a game tomorrow and we have to kick on and put it right.”

Grant slammed the Carrow Road fans for not helping his team over the line in the last 15 minutes of Saturday's game, with Hull stealing a point deep into injury time.

His comments have stirred up a hornet's nest and fans will demand nothing less than a quality performance and three points tonight - as Dublin knows.

“Whenever we play at home it is realistic for us to get three points, but it is only realistic if we roll our sleeves up and get on with it, earn the right to play and remember we are playing at home,” he said. “This is our patch and nobody should really come here and walk all over us.”

Dublin will again be asked to stand in at centre-back alongside Jason Shackell against a team he knows pretty well, having played for them last season and trained with during the summer. Dublin is expecting to come up against Matty Fryatt and Iain Hume and knows only too well the problems they can cause.

“I know them very well, they're very good players, great finishers,” he said. “Hume will score out of nothing, so we have to be on our toes yet again because as a partnership they are possibly one of the best in the league, having played with both of them.

“It's another hard game for us, but tell me an easy game in this league, there isn't one. Again we have to make the points lost on Saturday into hopefully four points in two games, which would be very nice.”

Both teams will be like wounded animals: City after conceding an injury-time equaliser against Hull, Leicester after seeing a late effort by former City loanee Elvis Hammond ruled out for a handball decision they say the officials got wrong.

“Both teams need the points,” said Dublin. “It is going to be head to head, it's going to be like for like, and if it's going to be a physical game we will have to match them. If it's going to be a footballing game we will have to match them as well.

“But I don't mind that sort of thing and I think there are players in that dressing room who feel the same way. They are a well-drilled side, they have some very good footballers. They can mix it when it comes to the physical side of the game, but so can we.”

Dublin and Shackell have proved a hit at the back, with the master predicting a bright future for his young partner.

“Shacks is a young lad and he has lot of energy and a great left foot,” said Dublin. “The thing about Shacks is that he listens and he has taken stuff on board. He is helping me out as well, by talking through the game and having Adam on the other side has helped him even more. I think the four of us at the back have done okay. There are still things we can improve, like Saturday's 90th-minute goal which didn't help us at all, but we're getting better.”