Saturday 28th November Kickoff: 1730hrs
Leicester City v Manchester United
Football – England – Premier League
Heading into the last weekend of November, 13 games into the season and more than a third of the way through the campaign, you could be forgiven for having to look twice at the Premier League table. Leicester City currently sit top – ahead of both Manchester clubs and Arsenal. It is testament to the tremendous job that Claudio Ranieri has done since arriving in the summer, but there’s no time to rest on their laurels as Louis Van Gaal brings his United team to the King Power stadium looking to overtake their opponents.
It really has been a remarkable campaign for Leicester thus far, winning eight and losing just once. The Foxes are also the top scorers in the Premier League with 28, which is one more than Manchester City. Even that is an impressive statistic considering how free-scoring City have been under Pellegrini down the years, but it’s their ability to consistently win the closely contested games that has stood out. Six of their victories have come by a single goal margin. That could be read as though there position is something of a false one as they have not won more games in a more authoritative manner, which may be the case, but it also emphasises the winning mentality that is prevalent amongst this group of players.
Anytime I preview a Manchester United game I start with a wonderment of how they are in the positron they are. Despite looking very ordinary at times this season, and struggling in front of goal for the majority of it, United are only one point of the top of the league and it is getting harder to discount them as genuine title challengers. Despite Liverpool and Crystal Palace being the only two sides in the top 10 to have scored fewer than Van Gaal’s men, they sit above the likes of City and Arsenal who have been given much more prominence in the discussion between likely winners of the league. A huge part of why they are where they are, in fact it’s the main contributing factor to their position, is their defensive record – no team has conceded fewer the them.
As much as it has been a team effort and that’s where the credit should be shared, there is also an individual story which dovetails with this – Jamie Vardy’s consecutive goalscoring form. The striker equalled Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s record of scoring in 10 successive games with his goal against Newcastle last week and has a chance of breaking it when he faces that player’s former club. It’s a run that started all the way back in August with a penalty against Bournemouth, and few would have thought it would take him to this point. With a place in England’s European Championship squad looking assured, it has been a tremendous rise for a player who was playing non-league football not so long ago.
It’s due to the lack of creativity and attacking intent that has brought with it criticism for Van Gaal and his tactics, and that continued in midweek when United failed to score at home to PSV, having to settle for a draw. It leaves their Champions League hopes in the balance but it was also the the sixth time that the Reds have failed to score in a game this season which is most unlike them. To put that sort of form into some context, last season seem them failed to score in 10 games in total which is quite significant considering there is just under two thirds of the season left. It’s also evidence of a gradual shift in the way the manager wants his team to play and it’s showing no signs of changing.
Leicester City v Manchester United Betting Tips
The owners of Leicester City could not have written a better script having went top of the league last week before hosting the biggest club in England in front of the live television cameras – coinciding with the game in which Vardy could break the record. The attention and focus has very much been on the Foxes in the build-up, and now they have to live up to it.
It is a very intriguing game and one which I think will come down to small margins. Leicester have had a kind run of fixtures in the opening third of the season, facing just three of the current top 10 clubs. That will all changes in the next month or so as they take on both clubs from Manchester, Liverpool as well as Tottenham and Chelsea. Without downplaying their achievements, if they are still top after those games then they really will start to be taken seriously as Champions League contenders!
I have my doubts though, and as Arsenal showed when they beat them 5-2 earlier in the season, their defence can certainly be gotten at. United may not have the same attacking threat as the Gunners but they are also capable of scoring one goal and winning the game, such has been the strength of their defence. They may not have been impressive last week in the win over Watford but the winning goal had all the hallmarks of United team’s under Sir Alex Ferguson, and I fancy them to follow it up here by spoiling Jamie Vardy’s party.
Manchester United 7/5 @ Bet365
