Leicester City v Everton

Leicester City v Everton: Toffees must embrace chaos in survival fight

As the relegation battle intensifies Everton travel to face a Leicester City side recovering from a European semi-final. Ben Steele expects goals...

Rested Everton can press tired Foxes

Everton's survival chances received an unexpected boost last week as a backs to the wall win over Chelsea, coupled with a Leeds loss to Manchester City brought them to within two points of their relegation rivals.

Sunday provides a good opportunity for Frank Lampard's side to get out of the relegation zone; Leeds travel to Champions League chasing Arsenal while the Toffees face a Leicester side who had to make the trip back from Rome on Thursday night following their Europa Conference League loss.

Brendan Rodgers made 10 changes from last weekend's loss to Spurs for the second leg and with little to play for in the league could well give his stars another rest on Sunday afternoon.

Last week the Everton front three of Richarlison, Anthony Gordon and, former Leicester man, Demarai Gray were excellent, leading the press and constantly harrying Chelsea defenders. Lampard will undoubtedly be looking for more of the same at the King Power and against a weakened Leicester side he will fancy his chances.

The Exchange has the visitors priced at 2.86 to pick up a vital win but with Leicester still a dangerous proposition I'm backing the draw @ 3.5

Expect goals as set piece woes continue

A feature of both Everton and Leicester's season has been goals from set pieces. While Lampard, in particular, has a number of aerial threats available to him both sides have, unfortunately conceded more from set piece than they have scored.

In fact, only Leeds have conceded more (18) than Leicester (17) and Everton (14) from dead ball situations this term. With Dominic Calvert-Lewin (6/4 to score anytime) reportedly returning from injury and the likes of Yerry Mina (12/1) and Mason Holgate (18/1) coming forward from the back Leicester keeper Kasper Schmeichel could be in for a difficult afternoon.

However, with a number of lineup question marks hanging over the game the value could well be in backing each side's set piece takers to have an impact.

In the form of James Maddison, Leicester have one of the best dead ball specialists in the league but the 25-year-old, who is 6/4 to score or assist in the game, isn't guaranteed to start after Thursday's exersions.

As a result, I'm expecting Demarai Gray to be heavily involved. The winger has taken 43 corners this season and stands over free kicks with regularity too.

In a game that I expect to be high scoring I'm backing a Bet Builder of Gray to score or assist and Over 2.5 goals in the game @ 4.65.

Vardy deputies offer goalscoring threat

Jamie Vardy is arguably the name most associated with Leicester City's rise to success and, even at 35, is still his side's key threat. However, he has struggled for fitness throughout the 2021/22 season and having played the full 90 minutes in Rome it will probably fall to his backups to provide the goals on Sunday.

Kelechi Iheanacho and Patson Daka have seen playing time when Brendan Rodgers has looked to rest Vardy and I would expect both to start against an Everton side who have conceded an average of 2.1 goals per game away from home this term.

Iheanacho is 13/8 to score anytime in the game and will be looking to bag his fifth league goal of the campaign but it is his Zambian collegue, Daka, who offers a more consistent threat in my opinion.

While Iheanacho is often deployed in a slightly deeper, more creative role Daka, a £23 million pound summer signing, is very much in a similar mould to Vardy - a poacher, operating on the periferies of the game until the ball gets into the penalty area.

At 8/5 to score anytime. Daka is well priced to score his 11th goal of the season against one of the league's most pourous defences.