Leicester City vs Tottenham Prediction
| Leicester City Odds | +400 |
| Tottenham Odds | -163 |
| Draw | +333 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -188 / +150 |
Leicester City make their return to the Premier League when they host Tottenham at the King Power Stadium.
It's been a difficult summer for the Foxes, who saw their manager Enzo Maresca leave for Chelsea and now are awaiting the verdict of their FFP penalties, which is rumored to be the highest the Premier League has ever given out. It's made things difficult for them to bring in new signings and squad currently constructed is not to the level of the Premier League.
Tottenham had a resurgence under Ange Postecoglu, finishing in fifth place. They have high hopes of getting back to the Champions League. When fully healthy Tottenham, were as good as any team in the Premier League and just made a huge addition by bringing in Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth to bolster their attack. So, they will be well positioned going into this first match.
Here is my Leicester City vs Tottenham prediction.
Leicester City Picks
Steve Cooper has now taken over as the Leicester manager under difficult circumstances, but he may be the perfect man for the job. He navigated Nottingham Forest back to the Premier League and then kept them up in their first season despite countless injuries. What comes with Steve Cooper is a complete change in the way Leicester are going to play.
Under Maresca, Leicester played a very possession-dominant style, consistently building out of the back and pressing their opponents aggressively high up the pitch. Now, they are going to be playing a 3-5-2 low defensive block and will primarily be looking to hit teams in transition. That style of play may the best method for Leicester to survive relegation, but it's going to take some time for them to play Cooper's system at a high level.
You add that onto the fact that they lost their best midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to Chelsea this summer and it's not looking great for Leicester in this first match.
Tottenham Picks
Ange Postecoglu is aggressive as it comes tactically. When Tottenham are in possession they are going to throw everyone at you. They will build up in a 2-3-5 with their fullbacks inverting into the middle of the pitch to create a central overload that caused a lot of teams problems early last season. Spurs averaged 1.79 xG per 90 minutes and had the third-most box entries of anyone in the Premier League.
Adding Dominic Solanke is going to make their offense better with a consistent striker up top. Solanke bagged 19 goals and had a 0.53 xG per 90 minutes scoring rate last season when Spurs were mainly playing with Heung-Min Son as a false nine.
However, Tottenham had a lot of problems out of possession. Because of their aggressive 2-3-5 build up they leave themselves vulnerable in the wide areas and are completely reliant on their two center backs, Cristian Romero and Mickey Van de Ven, to clean everything up. They conceded 1.67 xG per 90 minutes last season mainly because of their poor transition defense and being one of the worst teams defending set pieces.
Leicester City vs Tottenham
Prediction
It's kind of a mystery of what we are going to see from Leicester in this first match given the managerial and tactical change. We will see if they are able to effectively defend in a low defensive block for a majority of the match with Spurs having all of their attackers healthy and available.
Tottenham are always going to play in high-event type matches under Postecoglu because they have an elite offense and a poor ability to defend in transition. Last season, Tottenham were 17th in final third to box entry conversion rate and xG per set pieces allowed. But one thing that is true about Steve Cooper teams is they are going to play direct and they are always good on set pieces, which gives Leicester a path to scoring in this match.
Newly promoted teams coming up to the Premier League on average since 2015 see a 0.61 increase in their xG allowed per 90 minutes. That means Leicester are projected to allowed close to 1.60 xG per 90 minutes in the Premier League this season.
So, I like the value on the over.
