Leicester vs. Randers Predictions: Tielemans to fire the Foxes into the last 16

The European action continues on Thursday with eight fixtures in the Europa League and another eight in the newly formed Europa Conference League. Celtic and Leicester City spearhead the UK charge in the latter and we've tasked our man Adam Roberts to look at The Foxes clash with Danish side Randers. 

Brendan Rodgers famously said, after defeat to Napoli knocked them out of the Europa League, that "I've got to be honest I don't even know what the competition is", when referring to the newly formed UEFA Europa Conference League. However, winning this new third-tier competition may well represent his best opportunity of qualifying for European competition, as they currently reside in 11th place in the Premier League after a run of only one win in the last six. The winners of the competition are granted a place in next season's Europa League.

City enter the tournament at the playoff stage and the winner over this two-leg format will go into the round of 16 draw. They come up against a Randers side who are 5th in the Danish Superliga and who's best ever finish in that league is a 3rd place back in 2012/13. They have also won the Danish Cup twice, the last time being last year, which enabled their European qualification for this season. 

Randers will be bang up for this high profile fixture having pushed Galatasaray all the way in the Europa League play-off round, but enter this fixture on the back of a long winter break, having not played a competitive match since the middle of December. 

Team news: 

Leicester are without James Justin and long term injured Jamie Vardy. 

Randers are without Erik Marxen who has departed for Nordsjaelland but should be buoyed by the return of leading scorer Stephen Odey and Alhaji Kamara who returns from AFCON 2021 after a successful tournament with Sierra Leone. 

I have chosen two bets centering around Leicester City and Belgium midfielder Youri Tielemans. The 24-year-old continues to go from strength to strength in a team that has struggled for form. Tielemans scored last time out, in a 2-2 draw against West Ham, for his sixth goal of the season - only Jamie Vardy has more for the Foxes. He also has the second most shots for City with 38, behind only James Maddison. 

Tielemans has had three shots in three of his last four games and is averaging 2.11 shots per game for the season with 0.61 on target. 

I like the 12/5 on offer at Paddy Power for the Belgian to score in 90 minutes and will be taking it as my main bet. 

In a game where Leicester should dominate the possession and where it may be difficult to break down a Randers side who will be sat back, I like the idea of Tielemans taking some speculative shots from outside the area. The majority of his shots this year have come from outside the penalty box and he has scored two of his six goals outside 18 yards. 

William Hill have boosted the price on Tielemans to score from outside the box from 5/1 to 7/1 and I will be taking a small nibble on it. 

Good luck to you if you follow any of these selections.