WEST BROM fan Daniel McCulloch (@danmcc84) delivers his best bets from Monday Night Football as Leicester welcome the Baggies to the King Power Stadium.
Leicester v West Brom | Monday 16th October 2017, 20:00 | Sky Sports
Two out-of-form sides face off at the King Power Stadium on Monday night as 18th-place Leicester entertain a West Brom outfit who, like their hosts, have not won in their last five league games.
Whilst Leicester have four points fewer than the visitors they have clearly faced superior opponents in their first seven matches. Craig Shakespere’s side have already played Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool and although they lost all four, they were competitive in all of them, losing by a single goal in three and holding United for 70 minutes, before conceding two late goals.
That said, I have not been overly impressed with the East Midlanders overall. Their other results consisted of a comfortable two-goal victory against newly-promoted Brighton and two draws away to Huddersfield and Bournemouth.
The Foxes scored with their only shot on-target – a Jamie Vardy penalty – against the West Yorkshire team and were outplayed throughout their goalless draw on the south coast.
With this in mind, I will not be rushing to back Leicester to emerge victorious, especially when they look like going odds-on across the board.
Baggies unimpressing
West Brom’s return of nine points from their seven matches looks fairly acceptable on paper. However, in contrast to Leicester, they have played just one of the ‘Big-Six’ and actually performed far better in the corresponding fixtures last term.
The six fixtures against the same opponents (Brighton were not in the top flight last season) saw the Baggies gain 13 points, which explains why so many Albion fans are unhappy about their start to the campaign.
Anytime angles
Having therefore ruled out the outright market, it is the anytime goalscorer prices that I believe offer some value.
Jamie Vardy is fit again for the home side and I believe a goalscoring return is likely for the England striker. He has found the net in four of his seven matches so far this season and tends to fare well against tonight’s opponents.
Vardy has scored the winner in games against the Albion in each of the last three seasons and I therefore feel that the 29/20 Sportingbet are proposing on him scoring at some point is a tad large.
My usual approach is to back the centre-backs to score where West Brom are concerned but on this occasion I actually like forward Jay Rodriguez’s price.
His return of one goal from seven games hardly flatters him but I do believe it does him a disservice. He has hit the woodwork on two occasions already this term and it is no exaggeration to say that he could have had a first-half hat-trick when Albion played Arsenal on Monday Night Football three weeks ago.
The former Southampton player has looked a lot more threatening when starting up front rather than on the left-hand side and with Soloman Rondon having been in South America for international duty with Venezuala this past fortnight, I believe Rodriguez will start in his favoured position.
Best Bets
Leicester v West Brom – Jamie Vardy to score anytime (29/20 Sportingbet)
Leicester v West Brom – Jay Rodriuguez to score anytime (3/1 Marathon)
