King Power: Leicester City’s Astounding Season

“Foxes Never Quit” is the motto emblasoned above the King Power Stadium tunnel, glanced upon by the likes of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez before running out and performing in the manner they have done this season. The motto, it’s been shown, is clearly apt. All season, the entirety of Football had expected Leicester to fall away, yet they didn’t. It seems that those Foxes, in fact, do not quit; indeed, they have managed to outfox all the teams in the Premier League bar one: that one being Arsenal, one of two teams to have beaten Leicester in the League, and the only to have done the double over them. However, Arsenal managed to outfox themselves out of Title contention, and only their North London rivals Spurs had any hope of catching Claudio Ranieri’s side, and those were ended by Ranieri’s old side Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Champion status not only guarantees Champions League football, but also Top Seed status in the Group Stage draw. All this means that Europe’s Elite are returning to the East Midlands for the first time since Brian Clough’s famous Nottingham Forest side won the European Cup twice in a row in 1979 and 1980. Comparison with that Forest side has been common this season, and isn’t that far off the mark. Forest are the last English side to win the First Division the season after being promoted from the Second, a record that doesn’t look like being changed in the modern era; Leicester this season is possibly the closest thing we’ll get to that in the foreseeable future.

Claudio Ranieri and Wes Morgan lift the Premier League trophy after their last home game, a 3-1 win over Everton

            This is a story with more subplots than a Christmas Day Eastenders episode, and to get them all into one is a mighty difficulty. The main story, though, stems from last season and that great escape. Having been bottom for the vast majority of the season, from the start of April they won 7 of their last 9 games, only losing once to eventual champions Chelsea, and ending up in 14^th place. However, that season did show patches of promise, most notably the 5-3 win at home to Manchester United early on in the season, and there were many a game where Leicester could have felt aggrieved to have not come away with points. Additionally, while Nigel Pearson often courted controversy during that season, especially over criticism of officials, however, there were multiple occasions where his criticism was justified. In other words, there were hints that this Leicester team were better than the relegation scrap they were submerged in.

There have been many a joke on Twitter saying that this title challenge all starts from Nigel Pearson’s son racially abusing a Thai prostitute; this is of course in jest, yet it’s quite easy to see that without that incident, Pearson would still be at the helm at the King Power, and Ranieri would still be the man who lost to the Faroe Islands. When the ex-Chelsea manager was hired in the summer, Leicester were one of the bookies favourites to go down, and they had Ranieri odds on to be sacked first. Days later, when the previous season’s Club Player of the Year, Inter Milan legend Esteban Cambiasso, rejected a new contract to move to Olympiakos on a free, the situation looked precarious. Indeed, they’d already gotten rid of Anthony Knockaert, one of the men vital in their Championship winning season of 13/14, and had lost Matty James to a ligament injury on the last day of the 14/15 season (he’s still yet to feature for the Leicester first team since then). Yet, Leicester did some shrewd business that summer, most in hindsight notably the signing of N’Golo Kante for £5.5million, but also the signings of Christian Fuchs and Robert Huth.

Starting the season with a high-scoring affair against Sunderland, they went unbeaten in 6 games before losing at home to then-title favourites Arsenal in a 5-2 thriller of a game. That game was game 4 of 11 in the famous Jamie Vardy streak that eclipsed Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s record. By the time that streak ended in the 3-0 win away to Swansea, Leicester had played 15 games, winning 9 of them and only losing that once to Arsenal. Their next game was at home to reigning champions Chelsea, which resulted in an in-the-end rather easy 2-1 win for Ranieri over his old side, and ironically was the final nail in the coffin for his successor Jose Mourinho. At this point, Leicester were top of the league, yet nobody had them as serious title contenders yet; indeed the talk amongst pundits was as to whether they would be able to reach the Top 4 and Champions League qualification, something a fair few pundits thought they wouldn’t even be able to do.

Their Christmas period was rather shaky, not winning any of the 3 games in that traditional Boxing Day to New Year’s Day, albeit these included a loss at Anfield to Jurgen Klopp’s rejuvenated Reds and a ground out draw at home to title competitors Manchester City. By the turn of the New Year, they had reached the 40 point target that Ranieri had set at the season’s start. At that point, they were in second, two points behind leaders Arsenal. Ranieri did a little strengthening of the overall squad, bringing in highly rated youngster Demarai Gray from Birmingham and the versatile Ghanaian Daniel Amartey from FC Copenhagen. They soon returned to the top of the table after a vital week in February, where they played Liverpool at home and then Man City at the Etihad in the space of three days. Liverpool were dispatched 2-0, including a Jamie Vardy wondergoal from 30 yards, but even more impressively was the manner in which City were dispatched with comfort and ease. Robert Huth gave Leicester an early lead with a goal from a free kick, after which Leicester were happy to concede the possession and sit back. Just after half time, Riyad Mahrez scored with a classy stepover and finish, and soon after Huth scored again from a set piece to make it 3. Aguero scored a consolation late on, but this was the day Leicester, in the estimations of the majority of the footballing public, went from plucky early leaders to serious title contenders. They then had to go to the Emirates, where they were extremely unlucky to lose the game in the last minute of injury time, having played the majority of the second half with 10 men, however they still remained in the lead with a two point gap to the two North London sides.

In the 10 games that passed since that point and the title being, Leicester went unbeaten, winning 7 and drawing 3. Spurs went to Stamford Bridge, where they had not won since 1990, and let slip a 2-0 lead, meaning for the second season in a row, an Eden Hazard goal has decided the fate of the title. This sparked mass jubilation, not only on the Fulham Road where bitter rivals were denied glory and instead handed it to fan favourites in Ranieri and Robert Huth, but also of course back in Leicester, where fans ended up on roofs of double decker buses after one too many Vardy Bombs, and players went crazy watching the game at Jamie Vardy’s house, with Wes Morgan ending up dragged around on the floor.

N'Golo Kante holds off Yaya Toure and Martin Demichelis in that vitally important 3-1 away win

So what has caused this massive turnaround? From a Houdini-esque escape last season, and one of the favourites to go down this, to being on the final stretch for the title. This turnaround is so difficult to explain, Twitter has become aflush with conspiracy theories, ranging from preferential treatment from referees to doping. Additionally, the media have talked up the apparent coincidence of the discovery of King Richard III and his subsequent reburial, and the upturn in Leicester’s form just before the end of last season and continuing into this. However, none of these are realistically true, so I’ll attempt to identify the real reasons Leicester have done what they’ve done. Firstly, the main reason of doubt at the start of the season, Claudio Ranieri. The manager formerly known as the Tinkerman has become the man who forgot to tinker; Leicester have played the vast majority of the season with the same line-up, a vast difference to the spell at Chelsea that was characterised by constant tactical changes throughout games, including the one that in the end cost him his job, versus Monaco in the Champions League where the game went from 1-1 away from home with a man advantage to a 3-1 loss via Scott Parker being moved to right back. Ranieri has instead built upon the side Pearson had set up, playing a simple 4-4-2, with fast paced counter-attacking football built upon the steady foundation of a strong defence. He has made a few changes, although this is mainly in personnel, improving areas of the pitch that needed it. For example, Swiss international Christian Fuchs signed from regular Champions League-qualifiers Schalke to replace Paul Konchesky, who went on loan to midtable Championship QPR, at left back.

Another big reason for Leicester’s change in fortune is players already there who have suddenly upped their game by a big stretch. Jamie Vardy has, at the time of writing, scored 24 league goals, level with Sergio Aguero and behind only Harry Kane. Apart from his single season at Fleetwood in the Conference, this is the highest number of goals he’s scored in a season, higher even than when Leicester won the Championship in 2013/14. Danny Drinkwater has shown the kind of player he was tipped to be before he left Manchester United’s youth setup, where he was touted to be the replacement for Paul Scholes. Riyad Mahrez, despite being very impressive in patches last season, showed nowhere near this level of form and class, and is a deserved a winner of the PFA Player of the Year award. Finally, captain Wes Morgan has again fulfilled the potential he was touted to have when playing for his hometown club Nottingham Forest, and if it weren’t for the fact he’s already been capped for Jamaica, where his family originate from, he would probably have been called up to the recent England squad alongside Vardy and Drinkwater.

Jamie Vardy celebrates scoring his record-breaking goal in the 11th PL game in a row against Manchester United

To sum up this Leicester story is incredibly difficult. It feels like the kind of story you only see from cheesy Hollywood films starring Robert De Niro, Vinnie Jones and Robert Pattinson. And soon, it could be: the Jamie Vardy story is currently in development, with the man who made the ‘Goal!’ series of films writing the script and the aforementioned actors being pencilled in to play Ranieri, Pearson and Vardy. There’s only way a scriptwriter could end this story: with Vardy firing Leicester to the title, himself to the Golden Boot, and then in the summer firing England to Euro 2016 victory. One has already happened, the second is still possible, and entire country will be hoping and wishing the third comes true. Spurs have also been incredibly good this season, and continued their Fox hunt until the fat lady sang, but in the end, the boys from Filbert Way had the power to become Kings of English Football.