Roma v Leicester: Repeat of first-leg likely

“Neither side are in great form, with Roma without a win in four as mentioned and Leicester without a victory (P5 D3 L2) since winning 2-1 away at PSV in the last round.”

Back Roma and Leicester to draw at 3.45

Roma 2.265/4 v Leicester 3.65; The Draw 3.45
Thursday 5 May, 20:00
Live on BT Sport 3

Roma’s Champions League hopes end

Roma go into the second-leg of their Europa Conference League semi-final against Leicester, as favourites to progress to the final.

The Serie A giants are 1.645/8 in the To Qualify market, with Leicester at 2.447/5. Roma are also the favourites to win the competition at 2.9015/8, ahead of Feyenoord at 3.711/4, Leicester at 3.9 and Marseille at 5.04/1.

Jose Mourinho’s side claimed a valuable 1-1 away draw in the first-leg, with Lorenzo Pellegrini scoring the opener for the Italians, before an own goal from Gianluca Mancini, levelled the scores.

Roma drew again at the weekend, as Bologna held them to a 0-0 home draw. It was the fourth successive match without a win across all competitions (D3 L1) and made it impossible for fifth placed Roma to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

As a place in the top four was hanging in the balance, Mourinho wasn’t able to rest as many players as he would have liked and ended up bringing on the likes of Pellegrini and Tammy Abraham, in an effort to grab a winner. The good news for Mourinho is that he has no injury issues going into this game.

Leicester have reason to believe

With Leicester not in the running to qualify for Europe through the Premier League, Brendan Rodgers was free to freshen up his team over the weekend.

Only three of the players who started in the first-leg, remained in the team for the match away at Tottenham at the weekend. Spurs took advantage with a 3-1 win, leaving Leicester in 11th place in the Premier League.

Leicester are clearly saving everything for another shot at cup glory, having won the FA Cup last season. After going behind early against Roma last week, they did well to recover and ended up dominating the second-half. On the evidence of the first-leg, they have every reason to believe that they can win this.

Rodgers does have a number of injury worries though. Ryan Bertrand and Wilfried Ndidi are both out, while James Maddison and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall are both doubts.

Visitors are underrated

Roma are the favourites at 2.265/4, with the draw at 3.55/2 and a Leicester win out at 3.65.

Leicester look a little big at that price, in what should be a reasonably even contest. Neither side are in great form, with Roma without a win in four as mentioned and Leicester without a victory (P5 D3 L2) since winning 2-1 away at PSV in the last round.

The draw is not a bad bet in what looks likely to be a game without too many goals. Leicester are 2.68/5 in the Draw No Bet market and 1.784/5 to avoid defeat, Double Chance.

Both sides struggling to score

In Roma’s four games without a win, they’ve scored a total of three goals. Leicester have scored four from their five winless matches. It’s no surprise then, that under 2.5 goals is favoured at 1.814/5.

They are both generally managing to find a single goal in the match, so don’t discount both teams to score to land at 1.910/11. Another 1-1 draw is priced at 7.06/1.

On the Sportsbook you can combine both teams to score and under 3.5 goals in a Bet Builder, at odds of 2.8415/8. Adding under 1.5 first-half goals, creates a treble at 4.03/1, which landed in the first-leg.