Premier League Ponderings: Leicester continue to defy expectations

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: RONNIE MACDONALD ON FLICKR, FLIC.KR/P/R9AGCJ (CC BY 2.0)
Despite educated opinions across the board that their bubble would burst, Leicester continues to win.

This is starting to get serious. With only 13 rounds left in this season’s Premier League, Leicester City is not only still in title contention but have pulled five points clear of their nearest challengers. Despite the educated opinions of numerous pundits, fans and yours truly that their bubble would burst, they keep going from strength to strength, culminating in the recent 1-3 away victory at Manchester City.

One would be hard pressed to find an equally remarkable turnaround in a club’s fortunes not just in English football, but anywhere else in the world. This time last year, the club was in the midst of a relegation battle, written off as one of the most likely clubs to go down and only just manage to escape the drop. It would have been an accomplishment just to rise up to mid-table this season but this is way beyond the most optimistic predictions of the most delusional fans.

It is impossible to pinpoint a reason for Leicester’s remarkable rise to the summit of English football. The primary force behind the improvement is the appointment of experienced manager Claudio Ranieri, who replaced Nigel Pearson at the helm during the off season. He is best known in England for being the last Chelsea manager to last more than three years at the helm, and the last manager to serve the club before Roman Abramovich took over.

Since then he has managed in Spain, Italy and France, in addition to a stint as the manager of the national team of Greece. The appointment was seen as quite the coup for Leicester, but never in all my years of watching the Premier League have I seen an incoming manager have such a drastic effect on the fortunes of a club.

It’s not even as if there was a massive overhaul of players at the club, with the highest profile new signing over the summer being Robert Huth who, and not to take anything away from him, is not the kind of player to change a club’s fortunes. If any one new player can claim that distinction it would have to be N’Golo Kante. The tough tackling French midfielder has locked down the central midfield position alongside Danny Drinkwater, and the pair of them have managed to become one of the most efficient duos in the league, offering instrumental support to their attackers.

If Leicester can see out the remaining 13 matches in the same fashion that they have gone about the first 25, then the Premier League will have its sixth different champion, and the most unlikely one since Blackburn Rovers in 1995.