Ruud van Nistelrooy sends defiant Leicester City message ahead of Newcastle United clash on Monday

After pasting the Foxes 4-0 at home, Newcastle United travel to Leicester City hoping to once again significantly bolster their goal difference.

Without being too disrespectful to Leicester City, this is a game in which Newcastle should absolutely be targeting a big win, even if it is away from home.

In his score prediction, Chris Sutton didn't hold back with his assessment of Leicester's performance against Manchester City saying that they looked like they were waving the white flag.

That should give Newcastle plenty of confidence going into this tie.

Ruud van Nistelrooy's words don't match his tactics

However, it seems Ruud van Nistelrooy was watching a different game, and in his pre-match press conference (via The Chronicle), he sent a very bullish message to the rest of the Premier League that flew right in the face of what Chris Sutton was saying.

"Mathematically it's not over, we have the obligation to keep going but also when it's mathematically over, we still have the obligation to keep going - we're not going to stop," he said. "We want to defend the club, the badge and our own personal pride to show we're capable of getting results in this league and do better than we're doing.

"It's something I feel I want to go through with this squad, stay together and connected with them, fight ourselves through this and give energy every day to get ourselves out of this. It's not something I feel I want to run away from, I want to fight for this with the squad and that's every day. Monday's game is another opportunity for us."

I hope Leicester City avoid the drop somehow, but I also hope we batter them on Monday

Obviously the last thing you want you manager to say is that they've given up, so of course van Nistelrooy is going to say that they're going to fight during every game.

But he might want to tell his players that. He may also want to tell himself that given his tactics against City.

I've got nothing against Leicester and it would be an amazing story if they beat the drop. But they can start that fightback after Monday night's game.