Southampton and Leicester City kick off Matchday 34 of the 2020/21 Premier League season at St. Mary’s on Friday night.
The Foxes cemented third place in the table with a 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace on Monday. They now find themselves four points clear of fourth-place Chelsea.
At the other end of the standings, Southampton sit fifteenth – nine points ahead of the relegation zone but just two points clear of seventeenth-place Brighton.
Despite going ahead against Tottenham last time out, the Saints threw away their lead and ended up losing 2-1.
Southampton have now lost each of their last three matches in all competitions and have only managed to win two of their previous 15 league outings.
To make matters worse, the south coast side have lost 12 of their last 15 EPL matches – leaving Ralph Hasenhuttl fighting for his job.
Before the turn of the year, Southampton spent a brief spell at the top of the table. Fastforward to today, and they are now in danger of relegation.
On the flip side, things are going a lot better for Leicester. In fact, the Foxes took a giant step towards securing Champions League football earlier in the week.
Brendan Rodgers’ men went behind after just 12 minutes against Crystal Palace, but they managed to fight back at win 2-1.
Unsurprisingly, Kelechi Iheanacho scored the winning goal. The in-form Nigerian has now netted 14 goals in his last 14 appearances in all competitions.
Looking at the bigger picture, Leicester City have only lost three of their last 12 Premier League matches – securing seven wins during that period.
The Foxes slipped up and missed out on Champions League football last season. This time around, it feels like they have learned from their mistakes.
Head-to-head: Leicester clinched an easy 2-0 victory over Southampton back in January, thanks to goals from James Maddison and Harvey Barnes.
The Foxes also knocked Southampton out of the FA Cup semi-finals earlier in the month, winning 1-0 on that occasion.
Let’s not forget that Leicester also inflicted a humiliating 9-0 thrashing on the Saints at St. Mary’s last season.
Team news: Ryan Bertrand, Michael Obafemi, Oriol Romeu and Will Smallbone are all injured for Southampton, while Danny Ings is also a doubt for Friday.
Leicester only have two injury absentees at the moment, with Harvey Barnes and James Justin on the sidelines.
When you couple Southampton’s poor form with Leicester’s recent record in this fixture, all the signs point towards a Foxes win.
Forebet predicts that Leicester will score over 2.5 goals on their way to beating the Saints on Friday.