Leicester City vs Spurs Odds

After having three consecutive Premier League matches postponed, a well-rested Leicester City host Tottenham on Wednesday at the King Power Stadium.

The Foxes last played an EPL match on December 28 against Liverpool, where they won 1-0 at home. As for Tottenham, they saw the last North London derby with Arsenal postponed last Sunday and last played a league game on New Year’s Day, which ended in a 1-0 victory on the road. at Watford.

Historically, this game has produced even results, with each team earning two wins in the last four head-to-head encounters. However, Tottenham have won five of their last eight EPL encounters with Leicester City.

Injuries are piling up for Leicester City

The logical place to start with the Foxes is their injury issues, as manager Brendan Rodgers has several.

Ryan Bertrand, Timothy Castagne, Jonny Evans, Wesley Fofana, Ricardo Pereira and Jamie Vardy will definitely be absent for this match, while Daniel Amartey, Kelechi Iheanacho, Nampalys Mendy and Wilfred Ndidi are on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations .

The good news is that Harvey Barnes, Patson Daka, James Justin, Caglar Soyuncu and Luke Thomas are expected to return from injury for this game.

However, even with the arrival of reinforcements, Leicester still have plenty of parameters to correct if they hope to earn points against an in-form Tottenham side.

Simply put, Leicester have one of the worst EPL defences. Despite being 10th in the table, the Foxes are 18th in shots creating actions against, 17th in xGA/90 and 15th in shots on target against 90 mins and goals creating actions against/90 mins, per fbref.com.

Additionally, Leicester’s defense struggled to contain the league’s best teams. In seven games against the current top seven, the Foxes have conceded at least the expected 2.5 goals in five games. Moreover, Leicester have allowed 18 goals from 16.1 xG in those seven matches and have lost five of those matches in the advanced metric.

That said, the good news for would-be Leicester backers is that they have done no worse than a draw against xG in their last four head-to-head encounters with Tottenham despite losing two out of four. .

Spurs look like a new team under Conte

One simply cannot overstate how well Tottenham have performed since Antonio Conte’s arrival in north London. Suddenly seen as the top four contenders, Spurs are unbeaten in eight (five wins, three draws) and have xG wins in those matches.

Additionally, Tottenham’s defense appears to have found a rhythm, having allowed less than 1.0 xG in five of eight games and no more than 1.5 xG in seven of eight games, per fbref.com.

On the other hand, Spurs’ attack produced spectacular form. After a 0.8 xG performance against Everton, Tottenham have recorded no less than 1.7 xG in one of their last seven EPL matches.

And perhaps the most telling stat is that Spurs are due a fair amount of positive offensive regression based on this set of contests. In those eight matches, Conte’s side scored 14 goals on 17.2 xG in total.

The same can be said for their on-road metrics, as Tottenham currently sit on a -3 goal differential, but hold a +2.7 on-road xGDiff this season.

Spurs’ final offensive stat worth mentioning is their NP xG record against total non-penalty goals. To date, Tottenham have suffered the second biggest misfortune in this category. As it stands, Spurs have scored 19 free goals out of an expected 25.9 free goals, a negative delta that is behind only Norwich City (-9.5) in this category.

Analysis and choice of bets

From my perspective, I don’t want to bet on markets involving Leicester City, as I don’t know what to expect after such a long time.

However, if there’s one thing you can (usually) count on with the Foxes, it’s that goals will be conceded. Combine that with Tottenham’s aforementioned attacking stats and I think it’s in most punters’ interests to aim for a team total.

Not only do Tottenham have to experience a healthy amount of positive attacking regression, they also hold a shining record of goals against the worst defenses in the league.

In four games against the remaining teams occupying the last five xGA places/90 minutes, Spurs have generated more than two xGs in four consecutive games and scored two or more goals in three of those four games.

Meanwhile, Leicester have kept just three clean sheets all season and allowed at least 2.5 xG in six matches against first, third and sixth-placed teams in xG/90 minutes.

Take: Spurs – Team total on 1.5 goals (+100)