For good summer
Leicester begin defence of title having lost just one major player, added talent
A and maintained traditions t the King Power Stadium on Friday, the Buddhist monks of the Wat Traimit Withayaram Woraviharn temple in Bangkok came to give their traditional pre-season blessing to the players of Leicester City and then, when they were finished, Claudio Ranieri’s 2015-2016 champions were taken outside to each be presented with their own £105,000 BMW i8.
From meditation upon the divine to the ultimate driving machine, the Srivaddhanaprabha family cover all bases from the spiritual to the worldly when it comes to preparing and incentivising their Premier League winners.
Vichai, the billionaire Buddhist patriarch from Thailand, does not insist on much but the monks, as usual, will be back on a regular basis this season.
Today, Leicester begin life as the defending champions in the Community Shield, a game that in recent years has involved two clubs from outside the elite – Portsmouth in 2008, Wigan five years after that – but not as league champions. Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United are the opposition but it is Leicester who are currently the senior partner in this arrangement. Yet it is still hard to think of them as favourites.
Leicester have survived the summer so far. They have lost N’Golo Kanté but seem destined to hang on to Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, the other two in last season’s big three. By way of comparison, when it comes to being preyed on, Arsenal lost Cesc Fàbregas, Samir Nasri and Gaël Clichy in the space of just the 2011 summer window.
Some departures were inevitable. It would be inconceivable that Leicester would embarrass the old order in the way they did last season and not find those same clubs coming for a piece of them. Kanté was always considered the most likely of the three to leave, with a buy-out clause on his head.
Again, by way of comparison, after their 11th-place finish in 2012, Swansea City lost Brendan Rodgers and his staff to Liverpool as well as Joe Allen; and Scott Sinclair to Manchester City.
For Leicester this summer was as much about fending off the predators and they have done so well, with the help of owners who are prepared to reward their players with new contracts and not waste time trying to keep those who make up their mind to go.
When it was time for Kanté to force the issue, the French midfielder – a shy man – spoke to Vichai and his son Top in person to ask that they accept Chelsea’s offer. That is how the family prefer to do their business, on a personal level, and they told Kanté that he could go with their blessing.
The effect of losing head of recruitment Steve Walsh may not be felt for another year or so although the club still have chief scout David Mills, as important to the process of recruitment as anyone else. Walsh left for Everton on the proviso that he could not recruit players or staff from Leicester for another 12 months.
Faced with the prospect of Walsh leaving, the attitude of the Srivaddhanaprabha family was that they were not about to stand in his way if that was his wish, although the abruptness of his departure was a surprise. The family are philosophical about those who choose to go, and Walsh’s decision to leave has not been something upon which they have chosen to linger.
You might say that having achieved the impossible once, the family have no reason to panic again and they are less willing to buy into English football’s state of mind that certain people – be they players or scouts – are irreplaceable. It is not as if Walsh or Kanté was subject to the same demand 12 months ago, and Leicester still operate in a different market to the Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool.
Instead they tend to battle the likes of Southampton for players. Ahmed Musa, the £18 million Nigerian striker, was a target who sources say was not found by Walsh and was brought to the club’s attention via another route. His two goals against Barcelona, especially the first, demonstrated his promise.
As ever, there is no guarantee of success, and for all Leicester’s great achievements, last summer’s club record transfer, Andrej Kramaric, has been quietly sold off to Hoffenheim where he spent the end of last season on loan.
The signing of Bartosz Kapustka, a 19-year old Polish midfielder from Cracovia has attracted attention in the game for the size of the fee – £7.5 million for a player fresh out of the Ekstraklasa league. Polish players have tended to leave Polish clubs early in their development which means fees are low. Kapustka’s fee is among the highest ever paid to a Polish club, possibly even the highest, but then we live in unprecedented times.
The club’s trading is now very much in the hands of Jon Rudkin, the former academy director, now director of football, who has long been close to the Srivaddhanaprabha family. He has proved a reliable figure and now, with Walsh gone, he takes on even more responsibility.
The club pay competitive wages, if not the biggest transfer fees, and keeping Vardy set down an early marker.
Last month, the Srivaddhanaprabha’s King Power polo team won the British Gold Cup, the sport’s most prestigious competition, for the second year running and begin the new football season as the most successful multi-sport ownership family in the country. In polo they have arguably the world’s greatest player, the Argentine Facundo Pieres, and they could dominate for some years to come.
As for football, the future is less certain, and the competition razortoothed. Yet, the Srivaddhanaprabha family would be forgiven for saying that it has not been a bad summer so far, especially when one considers the usual fate of those who challenge English football’s establishment.
The club pay competitive wages and keeping Vardy set down a marker