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Leicester City 8th (8-7-8) vs Watford 10th (7-5-11)
Saturday 10 AM ET King Power Stadium, Live on the NBC Sports Gold App
It’ll only have been 25 days since these last two met on Boxing Day and Claude Puel will be hoping his side can produce a performance exponentially better than last time.
The Opposition
Watford’s fantastic start to the season has come crashing down as of late with the team only winning once in their last 10 Premier League games. Fortunately for them, they’re playing the side they last gained three points from. The Hornets narrowly escaped with a point last week as Abdoulaye Doucouré scored the tying goal with has hand ala Diego Maradona in the dying embers of the 90 against Southampton. Couple that with the win against Leicester and that’s about all Watford fans have had to celebrate as of late. You’d have to go back to the beginning of December where Watford earned a 1-1 draw against Tottenham to find the last of their points.
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The Foxes
Normally a 0-0 draw against Chelsea would be a great result, but for those that watched the match know it could’ve easily been 5-0 to the Foxes at half. It had the feel of one of those games that Chelsea were going to punish Leicester at the end by some fluke goal, but thankfully confidence isn’t a word that rings loudly in the Blues camp these days.
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Leicester’s next home goal will be their 300th scored in the Premier League, so who’s it going to be? Odds will be on Jamie Vardy, but I have a sneaky suspicion it will be Harry Maguire. It is worth noting that Riyad Mahrez has scored in each of his last four matches against Watford and who knows, maybe it’ll be Ahmed Musa.
The Prediction
Watford have become somewhat of a bogey team for Leicester, especially in the Premier League. They’ve only won once in six tries, so regardless of current form, this will be a tough match for the Foxes. Since Leicester’s only home loss this season outside of teams in the top six was a 3-0 defeat to Crystal Palace, I like Leicester to stay undefeated in 2018, 3-1.