April 4 – This time last year Leicester City’s fans were chanting “we are staying up” as their team put together the greatest ever survival feat in Premier League history.
Now they are chanting “we’re going to win the league”, an even more remarkable achievement that would represent the most staggering footballing miracle since the Premier League was established 24 years ago,
The party has already started – among the fans at least – even though there are still six games to go. Hardly surprising given that Leicester are seven points ahead of their nearest rivals Tottenham Hotspur and would have to implode big-time not to be crowned champions next month. They are just seven points off guaranteeing Champions League football next season.
Leicester’s critics will point to the fact that they have simply been grinding out results with little flair or imagination and creating fewer chances than their opponents. Their last four matches have all been won 1-0, the latest on Sunday against a highly unfortunate Southampton. Referees have been kind to Claudio Ranieri’s team with a series of decisions that have gone in their favour while they have invariably been clinging on at the end of games.
But Leicester’s unprecedented climb to the pinnacle of English football has to be put into perspective. Their title-winning odds were 5000 to 1 at the start of the season while the total cost of their regular starting eleven is around £23 million in total, a fraction of that of their rivals and less even than a number of individual players at some of the so-called big clubs.
In terms of consistency Leicester have been impeccable, refreshingly breaking the mould of the usual suspects at the top of the Premier League, a huge boost to the reputation of the hugely popular and likeable Ranieri, whose appointment many Leicester fans had initially questioned after a patchy managerial career but whose experience and unflappability has proved invaluabl .
Leicester’s Thai Chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who bought the club in 2010,celebrated his birthday by offering each fan who attended Sunday’s game a bottle of beer and a doughnut. They will be consuming a lot more than that when, surely rather than if, they go on to clinch the title sometime in May.
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