Steven Perez
Dailysports's expert
Newcastle
Leicester
On May 22, St. James Park (Newcastle) will host the match of the 37th round of the English Premier League, in which Newcastle will compete with Leicester. The battle will start at 21:00 CET.
Newcastle
The team has been under the control of new owners since the previous season – the representatives of the royal house of Saudi Arabia headed it instead of tight Mike Ashley. Such investors can be only limited by the rules of financial fair play. They, however, did not fill up their new project with money – they spent, especially if we take into account the current season, their finance in a pretty wise way. And, that is the most important, the new owners successfully relied on Eddie Howe as a coach. As a result, he raised his new wards from the bottom of the standings to the number of middle peasants in the previous season. Speaking about the new draw, “the Black and Whites” immediately and confidently climbed to the 3rd place. At the same time, there were some unsuccessful segments. For instance, a cool spring segment (8 wins and the only defeat made by Aston Villa) was followed by the misfire in the battle against Arsenal and a draw in the match with Leeds. Still, there were real chances to “stake out” a position in the quartet of the final standings.
Leicester
The club spent a glorious, even legendary part of its history – the sensational championship under the rule of Ranieri will never be forgotten. Rodgers could not repeat the higher mentioned peak, but the team was able to remind about itself and its ambitions – the club won the FA Cup (and then the Super Cup, however, it is a trophy only for pretty modest teams), made some noise in the international tournaments. There were the times when the manager from Northern Ireland almost brought his wards to the 4th, Champions League place in the Premier League. Unfortunately, the former owner died in a helicopter crash, and his son cannot pull up the business, including football, to the previous level. A season before brought “the Foxes” the 8th place – then it seemed like a failure. Nowadays, there is a fight for survival. And it is already led by Dean Smith, who appeared in April. It goes without saying that a strong-willed victory in the battle against Wolverhampton can be called as a real success. A 1-1 draw in the match with Leeds and a 2-2 equality in the confrontation with Everton have already been perceived as “not a bad result”. Then it was a shame to be without points in the match with Fulham – the newcomer from London, which had already no goals for the season, won with a 5-3 score. There was no surprise that motivated Liverpool took an easy victory on Monday – 3-0.
The statistics of head-to-head matches
The balance of head-to-head matches has been gradually changed. Leicester mostly won in 2019-2021, but Newcastle succeeded in 3 previous games.
Predictions
The bookmakers are only arguing about how confident Newcastle will win. It is reasonable to try, taking into account the weakness of the guests, to bet on “a -1.5 goal handicap” (odd: 2.12).
