Leicester city
Looks at where Leicester City go JORDAN-LUKE McDONALD League title campaign… next following their incredible Premier
Can they keep it going?
LEICESTER City’s fairytale season has come to a conclusion, but Foxes fans will be hoping for more than just a ‘The End’ to the final chapter of their remarkable campaign.
In fact, the majority of Leicester supporters will undoubtedly be dreaming about next season and their future under Claudio Ranieri. But they are going to have to go some to get anywhere near their success of 2015-16.
It was an extravagant expedition for everybody involved with the King Power Stadium outfit, from the players and supporters, to the coaches and staff.
They have been like a swashbuckling band of brotherly pirates who, whilst everybody else had their backs turned, stole in unexpectedly and swiped the valuable crown and the precious jewels for themselves.
The crew have been immaculate and the captain Wes Morgan has been phenomenal. There hasn’t been a single passenger.
It’s been an almost pantomime-esque season for Leicester, from the ‘oh no, they can’t’ to the ‘oh yes, they can’ of a title triumph.
However, one thing that Leicester must ensure is that they do not get too carried away or caught up in the hysteria, excitement and madness of their unforgettable campaign.
Rewind to the 2011/12 season and you might remember that Newcastle United managed to finish fifth in the Premier League. They massively overachieved with, in truth, a pretty average squad.
In a similar manner to Leicester, they had a handful of key players and the rest was sheer hard work and determination.
Yes, Leicester have been more successful this term, but the concept still applies: an average squad overachieves tremendously and then fades away again, back into the periphery.
While Leicester will want to maintain their success story into next year, there will certainly be various different aspects to consider.
Next season will see the introduction of the much-discussed television deals which will bring in huge additional finance for every Premier League club. Leicester will, of course, rake in extra money from their Champions League qualification.
Whilst they found some hidden gems in the form of Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy and N’Golo Kante, a whole host of prestigious clubs will inevitably be looking to lure their prized possessions away.
Mahrez is perhaps the most glistening and gleaming jewel of the lot, having attracted the interest of Barcelona in recent months. The 25year-old recently claimed the esteemed title of PFA Player of the Year, highlighting the massive impact he’s made.
His game has so many different facets and he is, arguably, one of the deadliest attacking players in the world right now.
The huge financial gains that will come about as a result of this season will undoubtedly see Leicester look to improve their star players’ contracts significantly in a bid to fend off outside interest.
Yet perhaps the ultimate question is this: if Leicester had had all of this money to spend in previous seasons, would they have gone out and scouted meticulously in the French second division to secure Algerian ace Mahrez? The issue at hand now is whether they should they be ambitious, go out and sign some established world-class talent, or continue to scout for relatively unknown individuals. They need to be sensible with their money. Manager Ranieri needs to strike a fine balance between maintaining the existing core of his squad and bringing in fresh recruits this summer. Get it wrong and he could do serious damage to the team’s incredible chemistry. However, get it right and perhaps his nickname of the Tinkerman could develop some positive connotations as he looks to tweak his squad. Having been awarded that title for his overrotation of players during his tenure at Chelsea earlier in his career, Ranieri has not exactly had the luxury at the King Power Stadium of a large squad full of depth and talent which would have enabled him to rotate players regularly. The 64-year-old Italian’s starting line-up has consistently been the same. However, next season could pose a more difficult challenge. Not only will there be an additional pressure and expectation from fans and the media following their successful campaign this year, there will also be more games to play. They were knocked out of the Capital One Cup by Hull back in October and then crashed out of the FA Cup against Tottenham in January. So, in reality, they were competing solely in the league over the last few months of the season. That is not to take anything away from their astonishing achievement, but next term they will have all three of those competitions as well as the addition of European football. Whether the East Midlands side will mount a serious challenge or
not in next season’s Champions League remains to be seen, but if they bring in the right players, who knows? Nobody expected them to come this far in the first place.
New rules for the competition would see them placed into pot one, meaning they would avoid the winners of other European leagues - the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain.
Of course, avoiding these European powerhouses would still leave difficult draws open to the Foxes, such as Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli and Monaco.
But there is nothing stopping the Foxes going hunting on the world stage, too. They will represent something a bit different and quirky – underdogs that have won the Premier League, apparently the most competitive division of all.
The thing that has made Leicester such an impressive side this season is not just the fact they have overcome everybody’s expectations.
In my opinion, it’s that, despite every club knowing how they play their game, very few teams actually know how to stop them playing it. Or at least they have not managed to.
Most impressive of all is that Leicester have regularly exercised their ability to flexibly shift between the beauty of free-flowing, high-scoring football and the beast of grinding out marginal wins where necessary.
The moral of the story? Leicester have thoroughly demonstrated this term what spirit, organisation and unity can do for any football team.
Now they must continue that into next season as best as they can on multiple fronts, and Ranieri and co must decide whether progressing to the knockout stages of the Champions League would trump a Premier League title defence.
Whatever happens, it will most certainly be an adventure worth waiting for. The next chapter in Leicester’s fairytale story is blank. It’s up to them to write it.