Expert Premier League predictions from Mark Langdon: No case for Leeds defence

All sporting matters seem trivial when compared to events in Ukraine this week but a sense of normality can be a good thing and therefore there were still a number of tiny moments which annoyed me this week.

People saying you can't laugh at New Zealand's Meikayla Moore's perfect left foot, right foot, header own goal hat-trick. Of course you can as long as it is done without a misogynist attitude. How can someone scoring a hat-trick of own goals not be funny?

Then there are those who referred to Dusan Tadic's cushioned effort against Benfica as a goal on the half-volley. Presenter Max Rushden fights the good fight on this every week but it's not a half-volley every time a ball is struck after it has bounced, instead it needs to be hit just as it bounced.

It's really not difficult but all of that pales to insignificance compared to the big news of this week: Nantes goalkeeper Alban Lafont was given a ten out of ten for his performance against Paris St-Germain by L'Equipe.

Apparently Lafont was the first goalkeeper to receive a perfect ten, a fact disputed by Aarhus fans who reckoned Lars Windfeld got one in a 1997 Uefa Cup tie against Nantes

Player ratings are generally rubbish for a whole stack of reasons and yet a number of UK media publications often feel the need to write articles about L'Equipe's ratings.

Just last week L'Equipe were in the news for dishing out a three to Lionel Messi for his Paris St-Germain performance against Real Madrid as the weird obsession continued.

L'Equipe's ratings are held up as the absolute top of the mountain for football player scorecards and yet nobody has been able to give me one reason why they are any better than any other guesses from journalists.

It would be difficult to score the Leeds defence too highly after shipping four to Manchester United and then six to Liverpool, taking their tally to 56 goals against in 25 Premier League games this term.

Leeds' expected goals against figure of 48.9 is the worst in Europe's top five leagues according to fbref.com in the top five leagues and Tottenham can be fancied to score over 1.5 goals against them at Elland Road.

Marcelo Bielsa's team have conceded at least twice in ten of their last 12 matches and last kept a clean sheet at the end of November, with 38 goals leaked during those dozen fixtures.

It has been a topsy-turvy few days for Spurs, sensational in the 3-2 win at Manchester City and equally poor in the 1-0 loss to Burnley on Wednesday when some commentators believed Antonio Conte's latest post-match rant could see him quit the club.

Conte was clearly frustrated by events at Turf Moor, however, it was raining sideways and Burnley have conceded twice in their last six Premier League games from a run which included matches against Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Spurs.

This is a very different assignment and it's one Spurs should enjoy with Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son masters at exploiting the kind of space usually left by Bielsa's man-for-man pressing, which is polar opposite to Burnley's defensive methods.

Best bet

Over 1.5 Tottenham goals v Leeds Saturday 12.30pm
1pt 8-11 general

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