Southampton v Leicester Preview | Team News, Stats & Key Men

On November eighth, Leicester City travel south to St. Mary’s Park to take on high flying Southampton.  Despite a turbulent summer of transition at Southampton, the Saints are flying high in second place after 10 games.  Ronald Koeman has come in and seemingly made Southampton a better team, despite all the key players they lost over the summer.  After a very strong start to the campaign, Leicester City have struggled recently.  The foxes have fallen into the relegation zone and have not won a match since their memorable 5-3 victory over Manchester United.  Considering this is their first season in the top flight for ten years, Leicester knew it would be a struggle at times, but, after an encouraging start to the season, the lack of recent results will be disappointing to Leicester players, manager, and supporters.

Team News

Southampton are missing three of their young English stars all out with long term injuries.  Jay Rodriguez is still recovering from his torn ACL suffered at the end of last season, James Ward-Prowse is still recovering from his fractured foot, and Sam Gallagher is yet to get back to full fitness after his knee injury.  Leicester will be without Matt Upson as he is still recovering from his ankle surgery just before the season started.  They will also be missing their back up goalkeeper, Ben Hamer, after he broke his finger in training.

Interesting Statistics

The last two meetings between the two sides ended with Leicester victories.  Despite winning the last two meetings, Leicester have won only three of the last 15 meetings between the two sides.  The last meeting between these two sides in the top flight was back in 2004 and that ended in a 0-0 draw.  In fact, the last three times these two have met in the Premier League the match has ended in a draw.  In the last 11 meetings, both teams have scored only three times.

Key Men

Leicester- Leonardo Ulloa

Leicester City made sure they didn’t overextend themselves too much this summer, but they did make one big signing in Leonardo Ulloa.  The Argentine became Leicester’s record transfer and was vital in their strong start early in the season.  The former Brighton star has scored 45.5% of Leicester’s goals so far this season with five goals in 10 matches.  The Argentine is a old fashion number nine that can get himself in the box and just score goals scoring with five of his 13 shots.  With no one else scoring more than one goals so far this season, Ulloa is the match winner in the Leicester squad and is the man that can make the difference for the team.

Southampton- Morgan Scheiderlin

While this summer for Southampton was a summer of losing players, they did manage to keep Morgan Schneiderlin, despite his interest to move.  After he got over his disappointment in not moving, Schneiderlin came back into the fold and has been fantastic for Ronald Koeman.  The French international has developed a great partnership with fellow defensive midfielder Victor Wanyama.  The two of them help protect the Southampton defense as well as start attacks.  This platform that the team has allows them to play in both an aesthetically pleasing attacking style as well as take a more defensive solid approach to the game.  We saw the former in their 8-0 win over Sunderland and the latter in their 1-0 win over Stoke City.  Schneiderlin allows the team to play the way they want to and is vital to the teams success.

Betting Preview

Dusan Tadic has 6 assists in 10 games for Southampton in the Premier League this season. You can back him to get an assist against Leicester at 2.90 with Tailorbet here http://goo.gl/Clta0b.

Prediction

Southampton are in fantastic form at the moment, and I don’t see Leicester stopping them.  The thing that deterred the Saints after their strong start last season was injuries.  They have done well to avoid them so far, and, with Leicester in poor form, it is tough to see them dropping points at home.

Prediction: 2-0 Southampton