Sports Blog 29/12/2015: Match Preview – Leicester vs Manchester City, Tuesday 29th December 2015

With a typically hurdy-gurdy set of results over the Christmas weekend shaking up the Premier League once again, Leicester will be looking to leapfrog the Gunners when they host Manchester City at 7.45pm on BT Sport 1.

Sitting at 38 points to Arsenal’s 39, but crucially with a game in hand, Leicester could return to their long-held league leader position with a victory on Tuesday evening. Yet they will have to bounce back from their first league defeat since the end of September, even if Arsenal (suffering their own 4-0 flop at the hands of Southampton) couldn’t fully capitalise on Leicester’s Boxing Day loss to Liverpool.

That game was also notable for the fact that it was the first game this season, be it in the league or otherwise, that the Foxes didn’t score in, something that in no doubt was down to the injury-threatening Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez failing to perform to their 15 and 14 goals scoring form. If Leicester are going to get anything against City, however, then Vardy and Mahrez will have to quickly recover, the Foxes lacking (or, at least, so far not having to find) adequate replacements for their two star men, who go into Tuesday night at Super Mega Player Goal Minute spreads of 25-30 and 24-29 respectively.



Yet Manchester City, for what it’s worth, aren’t exactly infallible at the moment either. City haven’t won 2 league games in a row since their 6-1 and 5-1 victories over Newcastle and Bournemouth back in the first few weeks of October. In their last 6 games especially City have been rather erratic, alternating losses against Liverpool, Stoke and Arsenal with wins over Southampton, Swansea and, most recently, a rampant 4-1 humiliation of Sunderland. That kind of form leaves the Manchester side 4 points adrift of Arsenal in 4th place, a gap they will be looking to close when they visit Leicester on Tuesday.

Whilst City themselves may be lacking in consistency, one of the few certainties of the past couple of months has been the rise and rise of Kevin De Bruyne (at a Super Mega PGM of 25-30) who capped off a masterful performance against Sunderland with City’s final goal (after having created the first and third) to become the side’s top scorer with 10 goals. Yet City’s goals don’t stop there, with both the sporadically injured Sergio Aguero and summer signing Raheem Sterling on 9 (and Super Mega PGMs of 52-60 and 23-28 respectively) and Wilfried Bony, at 5/1 to score first, on 8.

With all that forward talent, Leicester and City joint league top scorers with 37 goals apiece, our Spreadex traders are expected goals, offering a Total Goals spread of 3-3.2. And though the Foxes, despite their recent Reds loss, are in better form fears over Vardy and Mahrez mean our traders fancy an away win, offering a Manchester City/Leicester (h) Goal Supremacy spread of 0.55-0.75.