Leicester v Newcastle
Friday April 12, 20:00
Live on Sky Sports Premier League
Rogers showing his worth
What a difference a manager makes. Brendan Rogers has completely revitalised this Leicester side and they’re looking a far happier, more energetic bunch and are one to look out for next season in terms of a high finish.
Star man last time out was Jamie Vardy. How many times have we said that over the last few years? The former non-league player scored two and drew the foul that led to James Maddison’s excellent free-kick.
I guess we’ll never know how Vardy would fared if he’d made that move to Arsenal a couple of years ago but one thing is for sure: he’s certainly been one of the finest players in Leicester’s history.
Is Benitez running out of patience?
There will be a few grumblings at Tyneside over recent results but it’s highly unlikely that Newcastle will go down, which is the main thing.
One has to wonder though if Rafa Benitez has the patience to go through all of this again next season. Plenty of football folk don’t particularly like the Spaniard but he’s a top manager who has got good results just about everywhere he’s gone.
With all due respect to Newcastle, he may be a bit too good for them, or at least until they decide to spend some proper money on new players. Benitez may just decide that he’d rather be managing a side in the Champions League than one looking to avoid the drop every year and few could blame him.
There’s not much wrong with a quote of 8/11 about the Foxes. They look a far better side, individually their players are in better form and they have a good record against Newcastle, having won five of their last six against them. Stat courtesy of Opta.
There’s a bizarre stat (also Opta) about Leicester never having won a Premier League game on Friday in six attempts but then again, there’s also the one about Newcastle having lost more games on a Friday than anyone else so that sort of balances itself out.
Yet another stat is that Newcastle have lost their last two in a row without scoring but we didn’t even need that one to convince us that Leicester are pretty likely to win.
That said, that last stat points us towards a better bet at a better price. Newcastle look far too dependent on Solomon Rondon for goals and he just looks a bit jaded of late.
If Leicester can keep him quiet, they may just win without conceding and at 17/10, the hosts to win to nil is a bet we like.
Vardy is an obvious place to start in terms of a goalscorer and you can get 10/11 about him scoring again here. He’s also 11/4 to be first goalscorer and 9/2 to get two or more, which of course he did last time out. Vardy has scored in five of Leicester’s last six games (since Rogers arrived) and ion two of those he got a brace.
He’ll have few better opportunities to get another double than here and that 9/2 might just be worth chancing.
But also of interest might be Maddison at 11/4. In charge of all dangerous set pieces and looking livelier since Rogers’ arrival, that’s not a bad price at all.
That man Rondon is 21/10 but as we’ve said already, maybe we’ve seen the best of him this season already.
You can of course always combine two bets from the same game, lump them together and hope they come good in a same-game multi bet.
A James Maddison goal in a straight Leicester win comes to odds of 4.39.
Source: BetFair Tips
