Preston v Leicester: Foxes backed to seal Championship title

• Preston's miserable performance data

• PNE have failed to score in five of their last six

• Leicester a win away from Championship title

• Read about Betfair's new 90 Minute Payout offer here

Preston v Leicester
Monday April 29, 20:00
Live on Sky Sports

Preston 9/25.50 chief Ryan Lowe was bitterly disappointed in his team's performance after going down 1-0 at QPR in their last Championship outing. North End had missed a golden opportunity through Liam Millar moments before a Freddie Woodman error gift-wrapped a goal for the home side with the Lilywhites lacking the fire-power to bite back throughout.

It was PNE's third straight defeat without scoring, ending Preston's play-off hopes, and Lowe pulled no punches in his post-match verdict. He said, "Not good enough, first and foremost. That was nowhere near the levels. I am disappointed. I know it is a mistake for the goal, but we've got to do better all-round. I didn't recognise that as a Preston North End team."

Lowe made five changes for the trip to the capital with Alan Browne, Ryan Ledson, Ben Woodburn, Will Keane and Millar coming in for Jack Whatmough, Noah Mawene, Duane Holmes, Mads Frokjaer and Milutin Osmajic with the squad still struggling with midfield injuries - Ben Whiteman, Brad Potts and Ali McCann remain out for the Lilywhites.

Leicester 4/91.44 boss Enzo Maresca is pleased the task is finally clear for City with just one more win required to win the Championship title following promotion to the Premier League courtesy of Leeds' defeat to QPR on Friday night.

But despite watching his Foxes team demolish rivals Southampton in their biggest victory of the campaign last Tuesday night, he said it was not the best display of the season from City.

Abdul Fatawu's hat-trick, Wilfred Ndidi's powerful header and Jamie Vardy have put Leicester in a commanding position with Maresca saying, "Most of the time people judge the results. I think the performance was good, but I don't think it was our best performance. I think we had more games where the team was better on the ball. But I'm still very happy."

Vardy was a surprise starter against Southampton with Patson Daka and Tom Cannon both pushing for a starting berth. Ricardo Pereira returned at right-back with James Justin coming in to operate from the opposite flank, allowing Wout Faes to move back to his traditional centre-back role. Conor Coady and Hamza Choudhury dropped down to the bench.

Foxes fancied at Deepdale

Preston have largely defied the data in the Championship to sit inside the top-half this season. The Lilywhites rank inside the bottom-five for Expected Points (xP) and Expected Goals (xG) ratio, as only three second-tier sides have won the xG battle on fewer occasions this term; North End also boast the second-worst xG output across the campaign.

PNE's form has also tailed off since the start of April with Ryan Lowe's outfit posting W1-D1-L4, failing to even score in five of those fixtures. Preston now welcome a Leicester side that appear to have refound their mojo following back-to-back triumphs over West Brom and Southampton, as well as delivering W10-D1-L3 at teams outside of the top-nine.

With that in-mind, I'm quite happy to back Leicester to win and Under 4.5 Goals here at 4/51.80 with the Foxes a victory away from securing the Championship title. Enzo Marasca's men have only recorded five away shutouts thus far yet our proposed play allows us to profit should City seal a success via the 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 4-0, 2-1 or 3-1 scorelines.

Overall, 15 of Preston's 17 league losses in 2023/24 arrived alongside Under 4.5 Goals.

Now read moe of our Football tips and previews here!