Leicester City vs. Rennes Predictions: Two plays for first leg clash

After dispatching Danish outfit Randers in a 7-2 aggregate score across two legs, things are about to get a whole lot more difficult for Leicester in the Europa Conference League with Rennes Thursday's visitors to the King Power Stadium.

The two are having contrasting season's in their respective leagues, with the French side building upon their 6th place finish last season by currently sitting in 4th, while Brendan Rodgers' men have drastically underperformed and reside in the bottom half of the Premier League table.

Rennes were responsible for eliminating an English top-flight team last time in this competition when they faced Tottenham in the competition's group stages, and there's very well the same scope to repeat the process over two legs here if the Foxes fail to bring their A game.

Markets are somewhat limited for Europa League Conference games, but staying traditional and backing both teams to score, as well as there to be three or more goals in this game seems a logical play.

The Foxes have been good value in both of these areas domestically this campaign, with an equal 64% success rate across both fields.

In Rennes' case, five of their last seven away matches across all competitions have seen over 2.5 goals scored. But if we're concentrating on this competition alone, five of their six group stage fixtures featured three or more goals, and this combined bet of BTTS and over goal line would have landed four times out of the six.

For our second pick, I'm siding with Rennes to come out as victors from this first leg. Rennes have a 52% win ratio in Ligue 1 this season and are currently in the top-four in the standings.

Thursday's visitors came out on top during all three of their Europa Conference League away fixtures, including a convincing 3-0 romp against Antonio Conte's Spurs in December.

Leicester, on the other hand, have lost more games than they've won in the 2021/22 Premier League campaign. Add to that the fact that they've conceded three more goals (43) than they've scored (40) and Rennes look worth taking a shot on. Bet365 have them best priced at 5/2 for the win in the Midlands.