Leeds United v Burnley: Back the hosts to cover the handicap line

Leeds United v Burnley: Back the hosts to cover the handicap line

Leeds take on in-form Burnley on Sunday but Alan Dudman is sticking with the hosts...

Leeds United v Burnley
Sunday 27th December, kick-off 12:00
Live on Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Main Event

Bielsa's entertainers to go all-out again?

Currently residing in 14th position, the rather chaotic nature of Leeds' results and scorelines are somewhat alluring. The all-out attack system from Marcelo Bielsa has produced some staggering stats this season, including the fact that the Whites are the only team in the Premier League with over 200 attempted and faced shots this season.

More on those stats later.

The reliance on speed and the highest of all highest presses has yielded some remarkable results thus far, with a 5-2 win over Newcastle, a 4-1 loss to Palace and a 6-2 defeat most recently against Manchester United. Since that crunching at Old Trafford, Bielsa addressed the press ahead of Sunday's match with a 40-minute dossier on Burnley and a warning to the media not to undermine and destabilise his players.

Bielsa will never abandon his attacking principles, though.

Regarding team news, captain Liam Cooper is a doubt.

Clarets picking up with a good run in four

The Clarets have started to improve and have embarked on a nice run of four undefeated with a pair of wins and draws. One of those victories came at hapless Arsenal and they were defensively very sound recently in backing-up with a 2-1 success against Wolves.

The Old Gold failed to get a look-in and never truly breached Burnley's back four, although the goals in that match went slightly against the recent run of results with Sean Dyche's team hitting the Under 2.5 mark four times from their last six.

Dyche has injury worries as both wingers Dwight McNeil and Robbie Brady picked up knocks against Wolves and are the only wide players that are fit in the squad. Well, almost fit.

Erik Pieters could be drafted in, but that would be a defensive move.

Match odds

There isn't much difference in terms of league positions here, but there is a massive swing in the prices with Leeds at 1.79 and Burnley at 4.8.

Betting life is difficult at the best times, but these two throw up a real conundrum as they are almost complete opposites.

Games involving Leeds average a league-high 31 shots, and they even fired off 17 in the heavy Manchester United defeat - when they go down they go down all guns blazing. Compare that to Burnley - whose games netting 27 goals is a league-low.

I think Leeds' pace could be too much for Burnley so I am happy to play on the Asian Handicap Leeds -0.5 and -1.0 which pays at 1.98.

Expect goals again - but a short price

It's no surprise that the Over 2.5 is a prohibitively short 1.64, and in the long run, backing that every time won't yield a profit. Indeed, for all their gung-ho play, the last six games at Elland Road have seen an even-split of three out of six for the Over 2.5.

But of course it's hard to ignore the fact that Leeds have conceded a league-high 30 goals, and 22 have been scored in their last four fixtures. Pretty astonishing.

Patrick Bamford has nine goals from 14 appearances this term and there are lots of options to include him on the Same Game Multi bets on the Sportsbook whilst the Odds Boost of Bamford to score two or more has been boosted from 9/2 to a healthy 6/1.