Hotshots ready for battle as top two collide

By Mark Langdon 6:21PM 5 FEB 2016

THE top four in the Premier League are separated by only five points and things are just as tight in the race for the Golden Boot as the front two in the market go head to head at the Etihad on Saturday.

Leicester’s Jamie Vardy, who started the season as a 500-1 outsider, is 5-2 favourite after taking his Premier League tally to 18 with a double over Liverpool at the King Power on Tuesday.

Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero has five goals to make up on Vardy but the reigning Golden Boot winner is only 11-4 to repeat last season’s scoring heroics.

Another of this season’s Premier League hotshots meet at White Hart Lane where Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Watford’s Odion Ighalo do battle.

Kane, who is on 15 goals, is 7-2 to claim the Golden Boot and 14-goal Ighalo can be backed at 16-1. Romelu Lukaku, a 6-1 poke, looks the only other runner.

The Football Association have confirmed Chelsea versus City in the FA Cup will be played on Sunday February 21, just three days before Manuel Pellegrini’s men are in Champions League action away to Dynamo Kiev in Ukraine.

The date has annoyed Pellegrini, who said: “It will be a young team. I don’t see why we can’t play on Saturday. I must do what I think is better for the club, which is the Champions League.”