Leicester vs. Crystal Palace Betting Tips: Tackles and Goal Kick bets for the Saturday lunchtime kick-off

Leicester have made a woeful start to the season. The pressure is mounting on Brendan Rodgers and there are reports that the fans are ready to get on his back at Saturday’s match. Leicester have had to refund requests to announce a happy birthday to “Brenda Nout”. So if the Foxes start badly, it could get ugly in the Premier League Sack Race.

Crystal Palace beat Leeds in their last Premier League match. Patrick Viera’s men have made a reasonable start to the season and are 5 points ahead of Leicester in the table. Defeat here will see them dragged towards the relegation places this weekend.
 

Leicester need three points here. Their last match at the King Power was a morale boosting 4-0 win over Nottingham Forest. The Foxes need to show the same vigour in attack as they did on that occasion to get the fans on side. Forest had 8 goal kicks in that game, and I fancy Crystal Palace to get a few goal kicks here. 

Leicester’s opponents in the league are averaging 6.56 goal kicks per game. Anything less than a win could spell the end for Brendan Rodgers at the club. So there should be an air of desperation about Leicester’s attacking output in the game. 

More attacking intent from the home side should lead to more Palace goal kicks. Viera’s side have had 11, 11 and 16 goal kicks in their three away matches in the Premier League. Palace had 7 goal kicks in this fixture last season and I’m happy to back them to hit that mark here.

I’m also going to add tackles to our bet. Crystal Palace opponents’ are averaging over 20 tackles per game in the league. Palace’s side features a number of players who like to carry the ball. This lends itself nicely to opposition tackles. 

Leicester made 20 tackles when these teams met at the King Power last season. The high stakes nature of the game should further inflate the tackle numbers in this one. They are averaging 16.67 tackles per game in the league this season. Over 15.5 looks very doable against a side like Palace.

For the longer odds bet, I’m going to take the same angles as the main bet with bigger lines. There is plenty of scope for Leicester to hammer the tackles here. The Foxes made 32 tackles in their last match against Bournemouth. This suggests that the situation they find themselves in has the players desperate to turn it around and I’m hoping they get stuck in here.

Palace’s goal kick numbers have been extremely high in the league. They are averaging 9 per game overall and as previously mentioned, their numbers in away matches are even greater.

Overall, 10.00 for the double looks to be a good price. If Leicester don’t score early, they will frantically chase three points. Their team features a number of players who like to shoot form distance and this will help our cause for goal kicks.

The 32 tackles made by Leicester is staggering. They also made 30 tackles in 1 of their matches against Palace last season.