Why Leicester can repeat
After 13 games, Leicester City are a point better off than in their 2015-16 title-winning season. The fairy-tale feat of Claudio Ranieri’s side was supposed to be a one-off, but could Brendan Rodgers’s men repeat it?
FIXTURES
There are supposedly no easy games in the Premier League, but Leicester’s next four opponents, Everton, Watford, Aston Villa and Norwich, come close.
The crunch will come at Christmas with a trip to Manchester City on December 21 and a Boxing Day visit from Liverpool, but after that Leicester face West Ham, Newcastle and Southampton.
And, significantly, their schedule is uncluttered by Europe, while their rivals criss-cross the continent, risking exhaustion and injury.
SQUAD DEPTH
Leicester have money to spend in January, but Rodgers is already forced to leave out players who would get into many other Premier League teams.
‘‘You have a squad who give you their lives every day and then you can only pick 11 and only bring on three from the bench,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ve got guys like Marc Albrighton sat there hardly playing, Hamza Choudhury and Christian Fuchs not even in the squad, but if you see them in training every day they’re amazing.
‘‘But that’s what a successful squad is all about.’’
DEFENCE
They say that defences win championships, and Leicester’s has conceded only one goal in their last five Premier League games, none in the past four and only eight overall, the lowest total in the division.
Caglar Soyuncu shows every week why
BELIEF
If Leicester are feeling the pressure, they do a good job of disguising it. Rodgers emphasises that the present focus is on performance.
‘‘The consequence of playing and training well will be good results. We’ll see where we’re at with 10 games to go,’’ he said, while striker Ayoze Perez clearly finds the top of the table more fun than the relegation slog at Newcastle.
‘‘We are pushing the other teams [and] are enjoying our football, which is important,’’ he said. ‘‘We need to know how good we are.’’
However, there is one reason they might not:
ONE-MAN SHOW?
Jamie Vardy is the Premier League’s top scorer with 12 goals and, at 32, he shows no sign of slowing down in any sense, regularly outpacing the Brighton defence in Sunday’s 2-0 victory at the Amex Stadium. But where will the league goals come from if he suffers injury?
Perez and James Maddison are next with four each, with three of Perez’s tally coming in the 9-0 hammering of Southampton. He might be the best bet if anything happens to Vardy.