The Championship: Southampton vs Leicester City Odds and Betting Preview

SOUTHAMPTON, UK - Southampton are looking to reclaim their place at the top of the Championship this Monday night when they host Leicester City at St. Mary's Stadium. The Saints formidable home record goes some way to explaining why the Saints are 10/11 (bet £11 to make £10 profit) favourites for the match with William Hill. A draw is best priced at 11/4 with betinternet and Leicester City can be backed at best odds of 7/2 with BetVictor.

Having led the Championship race for most of the season, Southampton are in the unfamiliar  position of playing catch-up after West Ham went top after two Mark Nouble penalties saw them see off Nottingham Forest 2-1 at Upton Park. The Saints will be confident they can go back to the top when they host the Foxes at St. Mary's, where the Saints have averaged 2.3 goals a game while only conceding 0.69.

In the total goals market for today's match, over 2.5 goals is priced at 21/20 with William Hill and under 2.5 goals is priced at 8/11 with totesport. Disappointing away performances have been just one element of Leicester's underwhelming season and they have managed just three wins on the road, scoring an average of 1.17 goals away from the Kingpower stadium.

At the beginning of the season you may have been forgiven for thinking these two side would be in the reverse positions come mid January, but Leicester's Ericksson experiment failed to produce anywhere near the expectations of the fans or the board following a summer of high spending.

Having invested heavily for a big push to the Premiership, Leicester are languishing in 15th place but, such is the nature of the league, they are actually closer to the play-off places than the relegation zone and a win on the South coast today would see them move within five points of the play-off places although they would still be in the bottom half of the table.

In the correct score market, a 1-1 draw is priced at 13/2 with William Hill, a 1-0 win for Southampton is priced at 6/1 with Ladbrokes and a 2-0 win for the Saints is priced at 9/1 with BetVictor. Southampton have not been involved in a goalless draw for 43 matches but if you like taking on trends 0-0 is best priced at 10/1 with betinternet and a 1-0 win for Leicester is quoted at top odds of 11/1 with Paddy Power.

Leicester can take heart from the fact that they won this reverse fixture 3-2 back in August but Southampton have the best historical form pedigree in this fixture winning 27 of previous 69 league meetings between the sides.

Southampton could also be bolstered by new loan signing Yago Falque, who has impressed Nigel Adkins in training and the Spurs loanee is priced at 10/1 with BetVictor to open the scoring. In the same market, Brazilian Guly do Prado, in the absence of the suspended talismanic frontman Rickie Lambert (Southampton's top scorer) is best priced at 11/2 with Paddy Power.

Leicester are without the injured Martyn Waghorn, while defenders Sol Bamba and John Pantsil are away on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations. The bookies fancy former Portsmouth boy Dave Nugent and Jermaine Beckford to be Leicester's biggest threat with Nugent best priced at 17/2 with BetVictor to open the scoring and Beckford priced at 9/1 with Blue Square in the same market.

The game is scheduled to kick-off at 19:45 GMT.

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