Leicester v M’boro: Foxes tough to oppose in promotion clash

In-form Leicester are clear favourites for their home tie with a spluttering Middlesbrough team who have won just once on the road since early November.

Having bagged 11 goals in their previous three Championship games with just the one going in at the other end, it’s difficult to see how Tony Mowbray’s men are going to stop the Foxes emerging from this clash of two promotion hopefuls with anything other than the three points their 7/10 match odds indicate they’ll get.

Middlesbrough – who have never beaten Leicester since they were returned to the Championship in 2009 – can be backed as high as 4/1 to halt Leicester’s charge towards the automatic promotion places, while a welcomed point for the Boro pays at 13/5, though 14 games have passed since they last shared the spoils.

One thing you can bank on to occur when these two sides collide is goals.

Boro’s previous five have churned out 18 goals, 10 of them in their favour. It would be a foolhardy move to write off the away team’s chances of finding the net, despite their opponents keeping four clean sheets in their previous five games and their own goalscoring exploits have already been alluded to. A price of 4/6 is the bounty for those over 2.5 goals backers, while over 3.5 is an even more attractive 7/4.

The Foxes will obviously be looking to the scoring prowess of Chris Wood to see them over the line here and you can’t really blame them. He’s bagged nine goals in his last five games, including a treble last time out, and can be backed at 7/2 to break the deadlock here.

Boro’s Aussie front man Scott McDonald represents better value in this market, however, and he heads a clutch of players priced at 7/1 to open the scoring at the Walkers Stadium.

He notched on his last visit to this corner of the Midlands and has helped himself to three goals in his last six so he should not be ruled out of the running in the first goalscorer stakes.

All odds and markets accurate as of publication’s time and date