LEICESTER FAIRYTALE IS LOOKING GRIM NOW
THe last time Leicester squared up to Manchester City, all eyes were on Claudio ranieri’s team. The assumption was it would all unravel at some point.
Leicester winning the Premier League? Their story was amazing, but nobody truly believed they would pull it off.
I couldn’t understand why they were being treated this way and on February 6, the day they travelled to the etihad, I asked why they weren’t being given respect.
They ticked every box in terms of potential champions: a striker in devastating form, the best player in the division, a mean defence and relentless will to win. ranieri was also getting every big call right.
Yet here we are 10 months on and things have changed. Leicester’s fairytale success meant they were never going to be judged in the way ‘normal’ champions are — I expected them to finish top 10 — but, even still, this was unforeseen. A few early hiccups has become an implosion. They are now ticking every box as potential candidates for relegation. Their leading striker isn’t scoring goals, summer signings are underperforming, the defence has lost its authority (no clean sheet in the Premier League since october 2). The spark has gone.
The heat is on ranieri. I’ve heard some fans are talking about him being sacked but, frankly, that’s nonsense. Sacking the architect of one of football’s greatest stories? That would be dreadful.
For all the good he’s done, however, it’s impossible to ignore how their situation is spiralling. What of last season’s Holy Trinity of Jamie Vardy (above), riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante?
Kante’s departure to Chelsea has impacted on Leicester in the same way Luis Suarez’s sale to Barcelona affected Liverpool.
Nampalys Mendy replaced him in the squad but not on the pitch.
I’m sick of hearing Kante’s sale being used as an excuse, though. He’s a brilliant player but he had 10 men alongside him. Vardy was the subject of interest from Arsenal, but stayed; Mahrez angled for a move but no suitors were forthcoming.
Look how Vardy has played since signing his lucrative new contract. At this stage last year, he’d scored 10 times — a haul directly responsible for 11 points — and created a further six goals. This year? He has scored three penalties in the Premier League, which have been worth a point.
everything he hit before Christmas 12 months ago ended up in the back of the net but he’s badly out of sorts. He hasn’t had a shot on target in the Premier League since September 10, the date of his last domestic goal.
Vardy was a a nuisance for defenders with that persistent, aggressive running, so these stats will concern ranieri.
After 14 games in 2015-16, he’d covered 142.9 km. Now? It’s dropped to 117.6. When you start factoring that in — not to mention an injury to Kasper Schmeichel — the picture of why they’re floundering starts to become clearer. The dressing room dynamic has changed. They spent in the summer to cope with the demands of the Champions League but, aside from losing chief scout Steve Walsh to everton, they will have known that spending had the potential to ruin the chemistry. New faces who made no contribution to the march to history arrived for big fees with big wages.
Leicester spent £60million to strengthen. Yet when those signings don’t start pulling up trees with their performances, resentment creeps in.
ranieri doesn’t appear to have a happy squad and it was revealing to see Leonardo Ulloa say after Wednesday’s 5-0 defeat in Porto that he ‘is looking for another team’ because he’s not playing at the minute.
That insight was followed by ranieri’s disclosure about the squad becoming complacent.
Leicester becoming champions brought every football fan joy. You had huge admiration for what they had achieved.
If the unimaginable happens, and Leicester go down, nothing else would compare. They can’t become the champions that were relegated. That can’t be the end to this remarkable story.