The 2024/25 Premier League season has flown by to the point where there are only 10 games left to play. Southampton look down and out but Leicester City and Ipswich Town both sit on 17 points, six away from Wolverhampton Wanderers in 17th. Six points seem like a pretty low total; it’s two wins after all, but when you only have three or four wins all season, it suddenly becomes a task that looks extremely difficult.

The pair of newly promoted clubs will realistically need to pick up 15 points at a minimum from their last ten fixtures for safety, and that’s predicting that Wolves will not earn over nine points in that same space of time. Great escapes have become a rarer occurrence in recent Premier League seasons, but if either side is to pull the unthinkable off this campaign, who will it be?

Is this the worst bottom three in Premier League history? 😲

With 28 matches played, Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester have accrued 43 points between them.

That's the lowest combined total at this stage of any bottom three in Premier League history 😬#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/ryuKMCW9oT

— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) March 9, 2025

Leicester City’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Leicester City certainly have more recent Premier League experience, even in relegation battles. The Foxes were in a very similar position 10 years ago with 19 points after 29 games, they would go on to earn 22 points from their final nine fixtures in a spell of form that would lap over into their title winning season. However, when they were in a similar position two years ago they couldn’t find the same form and ended up Championship bound.

Leicester’s squad has plenty of Premier League experience and pedigree, certainly more than Ipswich, with the likes of Jamie Vardy, Boubakary Soumare, Harry Winks, Wilfred Ndidi and Jordan Ayew all playing over 1,500 minutes this season. However, a large chunk of their squad were also at the King Power two years ago when they were relegated by just two points on the final day with a more experienced manager at the helm.

Speaking of managers, Ruud van Nistelrooy could be seen as a weak point of Leicester, the Dutchman is yet to prove himself as a head coach in English football and the Foxes look worse in some areas under him than they did under Steve Cooper. Cooper earned 10 points across Leicester’s first 12 games of the season, a total which could have seen Leicester end up with at least 30 points come the end of the season. Nistelrooy has earned seven points for the Foxes in 15 matches, with four of those coming in his first two Premier League games, this has left Leicester on a barren run of one win and 12 losses in their last 13 league matches.

Leicester this season:

W3 D5 L7 under Steve Cooper
W2 D1 L9 under Ruud van Nistelrooy

📉 pic.twitter.com/GVUOgEEf2Z

— StatMuse FC (@statmusefc) February 21, 2025

After spending over £80 million in the summer, another weakness of Leicester’s is a lack of investment in the January window. The Foxes spent £3 million over the winter on Woyo Coulibaly who has started once, not played a full 90 and currently has 107 minutes of Premier League action since he was brought in two months ago. A failure to bring in season-changing signings at the midway point of the season is often what leads to a relegated team’s downfall. Whilst it might have been out of their hands, Nistelrooy is stuck with a squad that he did not form and it’s showing.

Ipswich Town’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Leicester City might have started the strongest, but there have been a few times this season that Ipswich Town looked the most likely to stay up. The Tractor Boys have that ‘underdog’ factor that almost saw Luton Town stay afloat less than 12 months ago. Here for a good time and not a long time, it is perhaps to no surprise that two of Ipswich’s three Premier League wins have been upsets against Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea.

An advantage Ipswich have over Leicester is that they also invested more than the Foxes, spending over £150 million this season, almost double their relegation rivals. Although it could be argued that Leicester’s squad was already closer to the Premier League standard and therefore had less work to do. The Tractor Boys also made more of an effort in January, bringing in Jaden Philogene, Alex Palmer, Ben Godfrey and Julio Enciso. All four have had a part to play since with Palmer taking over the keeper spot and Philogene scoring a brace against Manchester United last month.

Kieran McKenna had just as little experience as van Nistelrooy heading into his debut Premier League season, however, it was clear that Ipswich were always going to stick by him. McKenna currently has a points per game figure of 0.6, compared to RVN’s 0.46, Ipswich’s manager has a positive tactical approach which has almost worked in Suffolk this season. Even if Ipswich are to go down, expect to see McKenna back in the top flight at some point in the near future.

Seven players from Ipswich Town’s 2023 League One promotion squad have played over 500 minutes in the Premier League this season, with a further five making an appearance in the Premier League. Their unity as a squad has been a strong point, but equally their lack of Premier League experience has shown. Even the majority of their signings, such as Liam Delap, Omari Hutchinson, Jacob Greaves, Jack Clarke, and Sammie Szmodics, all came with next to no Premier League experience. Many did well to adapt so quickly, but after still being without a win in 2025 and just one point on the board since the turn of the year, the team don’t seem to have gelled well enough to produce a miraculous escape.

Statistics Head-to-Head

Taking a statistical approach to the question, both sides have scored 25 goals, however Leicester have overperformed their xG of 24.6 slightly, whereas Ipswich have an xG of 26.7, showing that the Tractor Boys have created more threatening chances. Ipswich also have the better defence with 58 goals conceded and two clean sheets. Leicester have 62 goals conceded and just a singular clean sheet.

Ipswich have a goals per shot on target figure of 0.24, whilst Leicester’s is 0.29, therefore Ipswich are less clinical in front of goal, but have notably produced 20 more efforts than Leicester have. Once again Ipswich’s problems seem to be in front of goal as whilst they have 480 shot creating actions in total this season, way more than Leicester’s 439. In terms of goal creating actions, Ipswich have 38 compared to Leicester’s 44.

Relegation chances according to Opta
Wolves 5.8%
Ipswich 96.6%
Leicester 97.6%
Southampton 100%#lcfc @lcfc pic.twitter.com/vuDMLrXvwb

— LTiDtv | LEICESTER TILL I DIE 🦊 LCFC (@ltidtv) March 3, 2025

Run in Comparison

One of the most important factors to consider are the teams each club has left to play. Leicester City notably face both Southampton and Ipswich at home, as well as Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester United at the King Power. Their away fixtures see them travel to Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove, Manchester City, Nottingham Forest and Wolves. The fact that they face all three clubs in the bottom four with them is huge, they will almost have to win all three, and also pick up points elsewhere against some of the better teams in the league, as six of their remaining seven games all come against teams in the top nine.

Ipswich Town have slightly more favourable home ties against Wolves, Brentford and West Ham as well as Arsenal and Nottingham Forest. They have huge away ties at Leicester, Everton and Bournemouth as well as two extra trips to Chelsea and Newcastle. The Tractor Boys should aim to win at least three at home and two away if they are to stay up, it’s doable but certainly easier said than done.

Injuries

The Foxes are currently unaffected by injuries, with Abdul Fatawu the only current absentee, however, he has been unavailable for the whole of RVN’s tenure at the club, and therefore is not a huge blow. Injuries have a huge influence on making or breaking a season, and unfortunately for Ipswich they face a few. Ogbene and Wes Burns are both out for the rest of the season, Kalvin Phillips, Hutchinson and Enciso are all returning in April, and Cameron Burgess, Axel Tuanzebe, Connor Chaplin and Szmodics all have return dates that are yet to be decided. The latter four were all sidelined during Ipswich’s FA Cup clash with Nottingham Forest, leaving the Tractor Boys with numerous key injuries heading into the last lap.

Conclusion

Realistically, neither Ipswich nor Leicester look like they stand a chance of staying up. However, to answer the question, Leicester have more Premier League experience in their squad, more points in 2025, less injuries and a vital match against Southampton that Ipswich lack.