Arsenal already have the blueprint to defeat Leicester
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Among many of the wondrous statistics, facts and figures about Leicester’s stunning Premier League campaign this term, an oft-overlooked one is that they’ve been beaten just twice this season.
That’s a division-low, with Tottenham next best on three defeats while Sunday’s opponents Arsenal have been downed five times.
One of the Foxes’ defeats however was a 5-2 hammering by Arsene Wenger’s north Londoners at the King Power Stadium in September.
Victory at Bournemouth last weekend handed Arsenal a much-needed win after a four-game winless run, and they now host the Foxes knowing full-well how to beat football’s surprise heroes.
Wenger started Theo Walcott alongside Alexis Sanchez in the reverse tie, and the Englishman’s pace allowed Arsenal to play at their flowing best, proving too much for Leicester in the process.
Leicester stalwart N’Golo Kante was outclassed by the Gunners’ pace, making around half his usual number of interceptions, while Riyad Mahrez lost the ball over 20 times.
The Prem’s top scorer Jamie Vardy has said that Laurent Koscielny is the toughest opponent he has faced this season, and with a significant pace advantage over Per Mertesacker, Wenger is expected to play Gabriel alongside the Frenchman on Sunday to counter Vardy’s strongest asset.
With nine of that day’s 11 Leicester players expected to feature if not start on Sunday, Arsenal will be facing a very familiar team to the one they dismantled five months ago.
Claudio Ranieri hasn’t changed his team’s style, with pace and pressure being bywords for their success this term, but unfortunately for the Foxes, Arsenal dealt with that in sublime fashion last time around and Wenger would be wise to stick to the same ethos this weekend.
While the outcome of Sunday’s game is very much up for argument, one area we can look on with far more confidence is goals.
Aside from the seven shared at the King Power, both sides netted in the two meetings last season and all told both teams have found the net in all of the last five clashes.
Leicester have kept five clean sheets in their last seven league games, but Ladbrokes are 8/11 that both Kasper Schmeichel and Petr Cech fail to keen their sheets clean in what should be an end-to-end encounter.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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