Chelsea vs Leicester City Predictions, Odds, Picks | FA Cup Match Preview

Sunday, Mar. 17

8:45 a.m. ET

ESPN+

Chelsea Odds	-220
Leicester City Odds	+500
Draw	+400
Over / Under	2.5  -188 / +140

Odds via bet365. Get up-to-the-minute Soccer odds here.

Chelsea look to book their spot in the FA Cup semifinals when they host Leicester City.

Chelsea have been going through a rollercoaster of a season. They recently have lost to Wolves 4-2, drew Manchester City 1-1 at the Etihad, lost the League Cup final to Liverpool in extra time and then beat Newcastle 3-1 at home on Monday. They are currently sitting in 11th place in the Premier League without much hope of getting into a Champions League spot, so the FA Cup is now their most important competition left.

Leicester City flew out to a lead in the Championship, but they have since allowed both Leeds and Ipswich Town to creep back within four points with nine matches left to play. The Foxes have been putting up fantastic numbers in the Championship and really can give Chelsea a lot of problems in this match.

Let's get into my Chelsea vs Leicester City preview.

Chelsea may have good underlying numbers, but they are limited tactically by Mauricio Pochettino and he doesn't seem to want to change anytime soon. The Blues have had good results against the top teams because they are a good team out of possession and quite frankly are better playing in transition rather than being a team that consistently builds out of the back. The problem is that they are likely going to be the ones that are tasked with controlling a majority of the possession and trying to break down Leicester's defensive block.

Chelsea are going to try to overload the last line of defense, which means Enzo Fernandez is going to get pushed further up the pitch. What that also means is Moises Caicedo is going to get isolated in the midfield and he has not been playing at an elite level in terms of ball-stopping, so in turn Chelsea haven't been great defending in transition. In addition to that, when teams do press Chelsea high when they are trying to build out of the back, they've actually had a lot of success.

In the fifth round of the FA Cup, Chelsea hosted another Championship teams in Leeds United and they caused them all sorts of problems. Their first goal came off of a high turnover and then Leeds sat deep and actually defended really well, only conceding 0.66 expected goals and seven penalty box shots.

The reason Leicester City are here in the semifinals is because they pulled off a huge upset in the fifth round going on the road and beating Bournemouth 1-0 in extra time. What they showed in that match is their tactical versatility can play against the Premier League. The match was pretty crazy with 49 total shots taken and over five expected goals created between the two teams, but in the end it was a very even match, which will give Leicester City confidence here going to Stamford Bridge.

Enzo Maresca has done a masterful job rebuilding Leicester City and he's done it by utilizing a lot of the same principles from Pep Guardiola's Manchester City because he spent all of last season there as an assistant coach. Leicester City put a lot of value on deep build up out of the back and ulitizing a lot of short passes to beat the opposition's high press. Usually the keeper Mads Hermansen will come out as one of the center backs in build up to give Leicester a +1 advantage against the opposing press. Because of this they will often invert one of their fullbacks into the middle of the pitch, which will allow one of the midfielders to play a more advanced role.

They've been really successful in build up, holding the second-best pass completion rate on both short and medium passes in the Championship and their build up has also allowed them progress the ball with a lot of success into the opponent's final third to create chances, as they are averaging 1.82 expected goals per 90 minutes.

Out of possession, Maresca wants his team to counter-press to try to win the ball back, but they will often drop into a 4-4-2 and have been very successful when they have to play a defensive block because they are allowing the 15th-most final third entries, but the second-fewest box entries in the Championship. So, they are capable of playing a style that can frustrate Chelsea.

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Leicester are putting up incredible numbers in the Championship right now having a +0.88 xGD per 90 minutes. Historically there is about a 85% decrease in a teams underlying numbers from the Championship compared to the Premier League. Accounting for talent level as well, I would project Leicester as about the 14th or 15th-best team in the Premier League this season.

What we know about Chelsea is they have struggled against teams in the bottom half of the table because they aren't clinical enough in the final third and they have major issues defending in transition.

So, I think Leicester can replicate what Leeds were able to do Chelsea and like the value on their spread +1.5 at -143.

Pick: Leicester City +1.5 (-143 via bet365)