Wayne Rooney needs a win to draw Birmingham away from trouble at the bottom of the Championship table (Picture: Getty Images)
Jamie Vardy has been ruled out for a third straight match as he recovers from a knee injury, meaning he misses Leicester’s Monday night trip to Birmingham, wrecking a soap opera subplot.
His wife Rebecca was involved in the so-called Wagatha Christie court case with Coleen Rooney, the other half of Blues manager Wayne Rooney, and if the Foxes forward had been fit the Championship match between the two sides could have been prime pay-per-view material.
There was the possibility of front-page headlines in Tuesday’s newspapers but now that’s not going to happen so the football will command a few paragraphs in the sports sections.
Anyway, football fans can concentrate on the plight of the two clubs with Leicester seeking to go three points clear of Ipswich at the top of the table while Birmingham need to win to draw further away from the relegation zone as they are just six points clear of QPR in the bottom three.
Blues will be seeking to build on a 1-0 win at Cardiff last Wednesday as Rooney celebrated his first away win as their manager in six attempts as Birmingham climbed to 16th in the table.
Wilfred Ndidi has helped the Foxes storm to the top of the table (Picture: Getty Images)
It was only their second victory since the former England and Manchester United striker took charge at St Andrew’s as Cardiff suffered a third defeat in four games to blow their chance of moving into the play-off picture.
At the same time leaders Leicester beat Millwall 3-2 at the King Power Stadium, although it was far from their best performance of the season. The Foxes have now won 17 times this term and they should make it 18 at St Andrews at odds of 3/5 with bet365. That’s a bit skinny so take the visitors to lead HT/FT at 6/4 with BoyleSports and Coral.
A 2-0 away win is 7/1 with the same bookmakers and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is 7/1 with Betfred to open the scoring and 3/1 with Betfair and Paddy Power to bag his seventh goal of the season at some stage in the match.
• Gerwyn Price is the star attraction on day four of the Paddy Power World Darts Championship at the Alexandra Palace in London and he should bulldoze his way past Connor Scutt. A 3-0 victory for the Welshman is 11/10 with Unibet, Bet UK and BetMGM.
• Baltimore Ravens can beat Jacksonville Jaguars by more than a field goal in theirshowdown in Florida. Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson can scoot his way to the first touchdown of the game, which would be his sixth rushing score of the season, at 10/1 with Sky Bet. He’s also 21/10 with Paddy Power and Betfair to score at TD at any time.
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