Tom Thumb against the giant in Premier League

On Boxing Day, football followers are treated to a Dutch get-together in the Premier League. Arne Slot’s Liverpool will then receive Ruud van Nistelrooij’s Leicester City (kick-off at 9 p.m.).

In the Premier League they faced each other twice as head coaches. As PSV coach, Van Nistelrooij won 4-3 at home against Slots Feyenoord, later drawing 2-2 in Rotterdam. Those were two equal matches between teams that had been involved in a title race for a long time.

Tonight will most likely be different. It seems that there is no equality. In fact: Tom Thumb visits the giant.

In that scenario, Van Nistelrooy is Tom Thumb. He started his period at Leicester energetically with a victory over West Ham United (3-1), but has not won a match since. ‘The Foxes’ are only one place above the feared relegation line.

Van Nistelrooij does not have many starting points when he looks at the figures. Since he took office, Leicester City is the team that has conceded the most shots in the Premier League (a whopping 82 in four games, an average of more than 20 per game). Not surprisingly, they conceded twelve goals in these matches.

Data agency Opta no longer has good hopes for Leicester this season. They have unleashed their ‘supercomputer’ on the Premier League rankings and claim that Leicester has a 62 percent chance of being relegated.

“The honeymoon van Nistelrooij is already over,” the BBC wrote on Sunday after the heavy 0-3 home defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers. “All positive effects of the coaching change have already disappeared.” That is a painful conclusion for the former striker.

“We have to acknowledge that it didn’t look good, and I will be the first to do that,” Van Nistelrooy himself said. “This is a bitter pill to swallow.”

How different the mood is in Liverpool. The team of Slot, the giant, is four points clear of the first pursuers as the leader and has even played one match less. Last Sunday ‘The Reds’ treated the audience to a football show when they visited Tottenham Hotspur (6-3 win).

The same ‘supercomputer’ from Opta gives Liverpool an overwhelming chance to become champions. In more than 86 percent of all simulations, Slot ends up with the Premier League trophy in his hands.

In that respect, Slot owes a lot to star player Mohamed Salah. The Egyptian is now 32 years old, but is having his best season ever. Not only is he at the top of the Premier League’s top scorer list (15 goals), but he also provided the most assists in the English league (11).

Salah thus set a record: he became the first Premier League player ever to reach double figures in goals and assists before Christmas.

In the fairy tale of Tom Thumb and the giant, the underdog ultimately wins. Despite a physical disadvantage, Tom Thumb manages to outsmart the giant and take his treasures with him.

It is not an unthinkable scenario that Van Nistelrooy manages to take a point, or even more, from Liverpool. Football has produced crazier results. However, it will take a small Christmas miracle for Leicester City to beat a Liverpool in top form at Anfield.

To use Opta’s ‘supercomputer’ one last time: it gives Liverpool a more than 85 percent chance of winning, and sets Leicester’s chance of winning at a modest 5.4 percent.

Slot discussed the bond between him and Van Nistelrooij at the press conference prior to the match: