GW 26: Tottenham vs. Leicester

After Everton vs. Manchester City midweek, the Premier League resumes straight away bringing us action from Wembley as Tottenham will be facing Leicester on Sunday. Tottenham are tight on the heels of the top 2 while Leicester are just off the top 10 making the match crucial for both teams if they want to move ahead of their rivals and achieve their separate goals. Tottenham are at home in the match where they’ve actually been worse as they have only averaged 2 points per every home game while 2.53 for every away game. This is similar for Leicester as well, who have been averding 1.16 points while at home and 1.38 points when away showing that Tottenham being at home might actually prove to be disadvantage for them. When Tottenham faced Leicester earlier this season they were away, as they won 2-0 and although they won they didn’t fully dominate the match. Leicester had more shots and shots on target in the match while Tottenham scored with their only 2 shots on target showing how clinical they were in the match. With Leicester in bad form at the moment you could expect another Tottenham win, however, Tottenham have a few worrying injury problems and with them being at home nothing is certain.

Tottenham have had an extremely good season up to this point and they’re only 5 points off top place Manchester City who have played a game more. Tottenham have now won their last 3 in a streak that has seen them win 9 of their last 11 in the Premier League, however, these results don’t tell the full story as they’ve been lucky to come out on top in a few of their recent games and you can tell that they are really missing Harry Kane. In this game, unlike their last, they might want to use the struggling Llorente up front or even use a 2 up front with Son and Llorente because this will allow Son to come in from the left and use his pace to menace Maguire and Evans who are both lacking in pace. Their last match was overall a pretty poor performance as they narrowly came out on top against 15th place Newcastle, 1-0. Expected goals does show though that they probably should have won by much more as their metric predicted Tottenham winning 3.19 to 0.40 which shows the amount that Tottenham are missing the finishing ability of Kane. Tottenham kept 72% possession but in the match coming up, they’ll have to be wary about their possession play as Leicester are a team who like to play on the break and they should be able to harm Tottenham much more severely than Newcastle were able to.

As mentioned earlier, Son will be the main weapon for Spurs as his pace and finishing ability are deadly. Son is scoring 0.65 non-penalty goals per game which is more than both Salah and Aubameyang and his goal threat will be needed for a Tottenham side who have struggled at finishing chances. He is taking 3.6 shots per 90 showing that he is often having to take initiative in creating chances for himself which is backed up by the 2.1 dribbles he is making as well. Alli is also out injured so a lot of emphasis will be put on Son for the creative side of his game and with him making 1.3 key passes per 90 and with 5 assists to his name he should be able to fill Dele Alli's shoes when required. Moussa Sissoko should be important as well as he has played well in place of Dier and Wanyama in recent weeks. With the two aforementioned players back fit, his place in the starting lineup could be under scrutiny but he has impressed lately and his well rounded ability has helped his team through the absence of some key players. If he does start, he will be playing in a defensive midfield role or possibly to the right of midfield three and he might be employed to stay deep and lock up James Maddison and therefore stopping the main source of creativity for Leicester.

Leicester were looking good a few weeks ago but lately they’ve transcended into a poor spell of form as they are without a win in their last 4 matches while losing 3 of these. A positive for Leicester though, is that they have been very productive against the bigger sides, as they’ve gained 7 points off the big 6 which isn’t spectacular, but looks so when compared to other mid table sides. Although many people think of Leicester as a very attacking team, they have only conceded 31 goals so far meaning they have the 5th best defensive record in the league, better than Arsenal, Manchester United and Wolves and this was shown in their last match as they narrowly lost 1-0 to United. Expected goals actually shows that they were quite unlucky in the match as the predicted score was 1.75 to 1.45 in Leicester’s favour. Leicester had 17 shots in the match to United’s 10, however, United were more clinical as each team had 6 shots on target and of course United scored the only goal. Leicester will face an even harder test this match, especially for their attackers, and their finishing will have to improve if they want any points from the match.

Youri Tielemans is expected to make his debut this match after signing from Monaco, and Leicester will be hoping he can make an immediate impact in a crucial match. From centre-midfield he was making an impressive 3.1 tackles and interceptions per game while at Monaco as he was also taking 1.8 shots per and making 1 key pass. He could be used in a number of roles by Puel, as he could be employed sit deep on Eriksen or act as a progressive midfielder initiating Leicester’s counter attacks and pushing up the field. Due to his all round ability though, he could very well be used to do both of these things but he might have to let his shot numbers suffer if he is having to do more defensive work. Leicester are performing poorly offensively lately and Jamie Vardy will need to get back to his scoring ways in this match if Leicester are to succeed. He only has 7 goals this season which compared to previous seasons is extremely poor and is record of a goal every 232 minutes is worse than each of his last 3 seasons. He is still Leicester’s main man up top and could be the component that ends up deciding the match as we’ve seen a few times so far.

Tottenham only have a few injury problems but the players who are injured for them are important members of the squad and will definitely be missed. Of course, Harry Kane’s injury should be most difficult to deal with but Alli and Davies will also miss the match and both of these players have played more than 1100 minutes in the Premier League this season. Alli’s injury wouldn’t usually provide such a massive problem as Son and Moura could play on the wings while Eriksen would operate as the attacking midfield but with Kane out as well it might force Pochettino to play Son up front which might upset the balance of the team. Leicester are very fortunate in terms of injuries at the moment as only Albrighton and Amartey could miss out. While Amartey’s leg injury shouldn’t cause too many problems for his side, Albrighton has been a valuable component to Leicester’s team and if his hamstring injury does keep him out Leicester might have to change their game plan. Albrighton is very good at making space as he plays very wide which creates room for players to attack through the middle. This feature of his game will be greatly missed as Tottenham have a few very unsure midfield players and if Albrighton does play they might struggle without too much support.

Neither team comes into this match in great form but while Leicester have only 1 point from their last 4, Tottenham have won 3 on the bounce and are really riding their luck at the moment. These last 3 Tottenham victories were all decided by a margin of 1 goal and with 4 of their 5 goals in this period coming from beyond the 80 minute mark you can see that Pochettino has been game managing very well. Coming into this game Tottenham are the strong favourites, however, Leicester like playing the bigger sides and with Harry Kane out Tottenham have missed many simple chances over their last few matches which could happen again here. Personally though, I’m going to go with my gut, predicting a 2-1 Tottenham win and another narrow victory for Spurs.