The Premier League's two surprise packages this season come together at the King Power Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Both sides go into the match on the back of wins last time around, the hosts edged out West Brom 3-2, whilst Watford produced an impressive 2-0 away at Stoke. Leicester and Watford go into the game hoping to increase their respective win streaks to three.
Top-scoring strikers
The main talking point for the game amongst fans, pundits and everyone else in between will be the red-hot form of Leicester's Jamie Vardy and Watford's Odion Ighalo. Not to forget Leicester's Algerian wizard, Riyad Mahrez, who has chipped in with seven goals of his own.
Vardy tops the goalscoring chart with 11 after as many games and his blistering form has gained the attention of everyone across Europe and the rest of the World. Apparent interest from European heavyweight, Real Madrid and the Premier League's 'big' teams hasn't fazed the 28-year-old as he gone from strength to strength on the way to breaking some big records. Vardy joined Daniel Sturridge and Ruud Van Nistelrooy as the only players to score in eight consecutive Premier League games and the former Fleetwood striker has showed that he's completely deserving of his place. The record is held by Van Nistelrooy after he scored in ten straight games, with Daniel Sturridge tied with Vardy on eight.
After a decent season for Watford in their promotion-winning campaign last term, Nigerian forward, Odion Ighalo has adapted to Premier League life perfectly, scoring seven goals after only eleven games. He has formed a formidable partnership with captain Troy Deeney and the pair's performances have not gone unnoticed, gaining praise from some of the sport's top pundits. Although Deeney has registered only the one goal so far, his build-up play with Ighalo has been vital for Watford's good start, his style of play being more of a hold-up striker with Ighalo playing the part of running in behind and grabbing the goals. Watford see themselves in 11th place after 11 games, which by all accounts is a great start for the London club, the work of Ighalo and Deeney is probably the main reason for their surprise start and it wouldn't be a surprise to see Deeney fire in plenty more goals between now and the end of the season.
Riyad Mahrez has also been a massive surprise, joint second on the scoring charts and third on the assist charts, whilst missing out on a couple of games after being benched by Claudio Ranieri. He was nominated for the league's player of the month earlier in the season and has carried his form through, starting Leicester's three-goal comeback against West Brom last week.
Foreign blood
Both sides have a non-English manager at the helm, which isn't unusual in the Premier League. Over half of the teams in the league have a foreign boss and the more British managers being sacked, the more foreign managers are coming in. Going with a foreign manager in the Premier League can be a massive risk but, for Watford and Leicester, it is a risk that has definitely paid off, so far.
Claudio Ranieri had already tried his hand at the Premier League for Chelsea, over ten years ago, he had mixed fortunes with the reigning champions after achieving the club's highest finish, 2nd, at the time. After he was sacked, Roman Abramovich appointed Jose Mourinho who won the next two championships in a period where he broke some of the records set by Ranieri. Since then, Ranieri hasn't been able to hold down a spot at any clubs, managing seven different sides with his longest reign in that time being only two years. The appointment of the Italian was mainly questioned by Leicester fans as his track record wasn't too great but the start he has had has silenced any doubters from the start of the season.
Quique Sanchez Flores was appointed as Watford's main man only one month after the Hornets secured their return to the top-flight. This came as a surprise to their fans and the reaction was relatively subdued as no-one had really heard of the Spaniard and his managerial CV wasn't exactly amazing. Like Ranieri, Flores hasn't been able to keep a job particularly well, having nine different jobs over a space of 14 years, the longest spell of four years as the Real Madrid youth team manager. Watford have had several managerial changes over the last couple of seasons and that habit almost means that a chosen manager will know that they're not there for the long run. Quique Flores has also proved the doubters wrong with his team holding 11th position which is certainly not bad seeing as they have faced some of the league's bigger sides. For a newly promoted team to be in this position at the start of November is almost unheard of and the Watford fans will expect for more of the same over the rest of the season.
The match
The teams are at the opposite ends of the scale in terms in goals scored. Watford are the team joint-second lowest with ten, whilst Leicester are second with 23. However, Leicester have conceded a considerable amount more, conceding 19, while Watford have conceded nearly half, only ten. This means that Leicester will go at Watford from the start with the electric atmosphere from the Foxes faithful, with Watford likely to take a defensive approach and hope to catch them on the break. This probably means that there won't be as many goals as the Leicester fans are used to, with one or two goals being enough to claim all three points.
Score Prediction: 2-0 Leicester
