THE STRIKER: previews Thursday’s Premier League game between LEICESTER v WEST BROM with extended stats and a recommended BETDAQ bet.

The Striker is a professional football punter who focused solely on football in the UK. He has over ten years of experience using exchanges and he’s been a full-time professional punter for more than five years. UK football is his edge and he sticks to it!

Thankfully The Striker has agreed to share his best bets with BETDAQ Tips! He will use a staking system between one and five points to give readers a clue as to how confident he is with each individual bet. He uses his own analysis to price up matches and loves advanced stats like xG, goal stats and current form.

LEICESTER V WEST BROM

8pm The Premier League action keeps on coming this week and we have a massive game for Leicester on Thursday. The last week couldn’t have gone much better for them. After losing two in a row against Manchester City and West Ham, they had the chasing pack on their tails and surely they would have been feeling the pressure after dropping out of the Top Four in the final games last season. With West Ham losing to Newcastle and Chelsea only drawing with Brighton on Tuesday, now the door is open to give themselves a four point cushion as the season draws to a close. And they also have an FA Cup Final to look forward too!

The only negative for Leicester is West Brom come here in good form. Perhaps they have relaxed after it looked certain they would go down and started to play with freedom. There’s a good chance now they might catch Fulham, but it’s very difficult to see them catching Burnley. They dominated Southampton to win 3-0 to follow up a 5-2 win over Chelsea, and they were unlucky not to beat Newcastle recently too. Leicester should get the job done, but they have a difficult night ahead.

In the Sky Sports era, we tend to “big up” every game, but this really is a massive fixture for Leicester. They need to win – a loss just opens the door for everyone and they could easily fall out of the Top Four. A win sees them four points clear with four games to play, a loss would see them within three points of Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool. They’ve been gifted an opportunity here with the others dropping points while Leicester being busy with the FA Cup, and they need to take it.

There will be a lot of big opinions either way on the Leicester price on BETDAQ Betting Exchange at 1.61. I can see why plenty of punters might want to lay them given West Brom have scored eight goals in two games, but that was a freak result against Chelsea and while they dominated Southampton – it’s fair to say Southampton have finished the season poorly. Leicester will be levels above.

Although both teams have been involved in some goal-fests lately, the xG figures have been smaller. The West Ham and Leicester game was a lot tighter than 3-2 and West Brom don’t usually play such an open game. I’m keen to keep stakes relatively low here because as I said above West Brom could be playing with more freedom now but under 2.5 goals looks good value at 1.98. Leicester will be cagey and have been grinding out games rather than blowing teams away, and West Brom don’t usually score goals for fun like their last two games! I would have unders the favourite, rather than a 50/50 market.

The Striker Says:
Two points win Under 2.5 goals at 1.98 with BETDAQ Betting Exchange

You can view all markets here -> http://bit.ly/BDQleiwba

MATCH STATS

  • Leicester are looking to complete their first league double over West Brom since the 1993-94 campaign, when the sides were in the second tier.
  • West Brom are unbeaten in their last eight away league games against Leicester (W5 D3) since a 4-2 defeat in January 1994. The Baggies last had a longer unbeaten away league run against an opponent between August 1948 and September 1964 (9 vs Nottingham Forest).
  • None of the nine Premier League meetings between Leicester and West Brom have been won by the home side (D2 L7) – only Bournemouth vs Watford has been played more in the competition without the home side ever winning (10 games).
  • Leicester have lost their last two Premier League games, last losing three in a row in February 2019 in Claude Puel’s last three matches in charge.
  • Following victories against Chelsea (5-2) and Southampton (3-0), West Brom will be aiming to win three consecutive Premier League games for the first time since November 2012 (a run of four), while the Baggies last scored three or more goals in three consecutive top-flight matches back in September 1982.
  • West Brom have played more Premier League games on a Thursday without ever winning than any other side in the competition (P5 D2 L3). Indeed, their last top-flight victory on this day came back in April 1972 against Chelsea (4-0).
  • West Brom boss Sam Allardyce will be looking to become the first Premier League manager to beat Leicester with four different clubs, having previously done so with Bolton, West Ham and Everton.
  • Leicester’s Jamie Vardy has scored six goals in his last seven Premier League starts against West Brom, though all of these strikes have come at the Hawthorns.
  • Leicester’s Kelechi Iheanacho has scored seven goals in his last five Premier League games, as many as he had in his previous 63 appearances in the competition. His eight goals this season is his joint-highest return in a single campaign in the competition (also 8 in 2015-16).
  • Only Peter Odemwingie (22 in 2010-11), Romelu Lukaku (21 in 2012-13) and Saido Berahino (15 in 2014-15) have had a hand in more goals in a single Premier League campaign for West Brom than Matheus Pereira in 2020-21 (13 – 8 goals, 5 assists).