Saturday’s fixture is set up nicely as a battle between respective team strengths. Saracens are scoring more tries per game (3.8) than any other Premiership club, and rank high for offloads and line breaks (both third). Leicester across the same categories rank fifth, 11th and eighth.

However Saracens’ high-scoring attack matches up well with Kevin Sinfield’s defence at Leicester, with the league leaders having the second-best tackle success percentage rate of any club in the league on 88 per cent (Saracens are fractionally behind in fifth on 86.9 per cent).

Finally, although Leicester might not be scoring as many tries as Saracens, the two clubs are the top two points-scoring sides in the league, with Saracens averaging 33.1 and Leicester 29.8.

Personnel

Both Borthwick and McCall made sure to reel off the number of impressive players in each other’s side when speaking this week. McCall predicted on Tuesday that Leicester would have Ford back from England duty and, indeed, Ford will captain Leicester starting at fly-half on Saturday. 

McCall also highlighted Leicester’s young talent in Ollie Chessum and George Martin, with both of those forwards starting in Leicester’s back row, plus centre Dan Kelly. Jasper Wiese, labelled by McCall as “world-class”, is on the Leicester bench.

“In terms of who is the most consistent, high-performing team at the moment, I think everyone knows the answer to that right now. They’re very comfortable with the game that they play, and most teams they have played haven’t been able to cope with them,” McCall added.

The return of scrum-half Aled Davies comes at a key time for Saracens, who remain without Owen Farrell for a few more weeks but, like Leicester, have also been boosted by the return of an England player, Elliot Daly in Saracens’ case who starts at full-back.

Saracens will miss Farrell, Max Malins, Maro Itoje, Jamie George and Nick Isiekwe, just as Leicester will be without Freddie Steward, Ben Youngs and Ellis Genge. Saracens are at least boosted by the return of Nick Tompkins from Wales duty, giving them their best centre pairing to work with starting Tompkins alongside Alex Lozowski.

Prediction

The form guide is a little murky. Saracens have only been defeated once at home this season, to Gloucester at the start of January, but have lost three of their last five. Leicester meanwhile have won four straight, but lost two of their last three games away from home.

Given that Leicester have not won at the StoneX Stadium since 2018, and not completed the double over Saracens since 2008-09, home advantage feels important. Yet it would hardly be a shock if Ford’s return coincided with Leicester making it 16 wins out of 18 in the league this season, widening the already large gap between Leicester and the rest.