Leicester City’s astonishing run in the Premier League this season is undoubtedly one of the best stories in recent English football history.
In a league where an established top four and top six have formed over past decade, a disruption to that order by a side promoted just 18 months ago is a welcome shift from the norm.
Leicester, joint-top with Arsenal at present, are 16 games away from what would be an incredible achievement if they can maintain their performance levels. As ever with smaller clubs, though, their ability to be consistent through to May is widely doubted.
If you’re looking at this sensibly, there’s absolutely no way Leicester City can maintain this sort of form and be threatening Arsenal and Manchester City as the season enters the home straight at the end of April.
Their squad is too thin, their experience too little and the other teams are just that much better… but then that’s what we’ve been saying since mid-November when Leicester first went top of the league.
But everything about this season has been distinctly illogical and almost without precedent and with that as a backdrop, it only makes perfect sense to consider Leicester as challengers.
We’re still apparently waiting for them to hit a bad run of form. But they may have already experienced their trough as between December 26 against Liverpool and the 83rd minute in the league clash at Spurs, they failed to score.
Before the win at White Hart Lane they dropped seven points in three festive matches – at Liverpool and home to Man City and Bournemouth – but the fact this was their worst run of a trio of matches all season speaks volumes.
Despite this blip, neither Arsenal or City were able to claw any significant advantage and here we are on January 18, where we were a month ago with Leicester and Arsenal as the top two in the country.
For all the talk of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez and Leicester’s viper-like counter-attack, as that has failed to fire their defensive unit has stood up. The clean sheets against City and, in particular, at Spurs were real eye-openers and showed they are more than just all-out attack.
February begins with three fixtures that will probably decide their fate: Liverpool at home and then City and Arsenal away. Survive them and they have just two more games against current top-eight sides – Palace and Man United.
The answer to this question is loaded with ifs, namely if they can keep key men fit, if City and Arsenal’s squad buckles under the weight of Champions League commitments and if Vardy and Mahrez can rediscover their goalscoring touch. But, in a season of such mass inconsistencies and anomalies, why not?
Leicester City have been enjoying a fairy tale Premier League season so far, but we all know fairytales aren’t real and neither are the Foxes’ title aspirations. Premier League history is littered with several heart-warming stories of underdogs challenging the established elite.
Who can forget the enchanting tale of Ipswich Town in 2000-01, George Burley’s Tractor Boys roaring to fifth place the season after entering the Premier League via the Championship’s playoffs.
Last season Southampton finished seventh despite the departures of Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana and manager Mauricio Pochettino. The link all these teams share is that they tailed off. So too will Claudio Ranieri’s men.
33 - Leicester City will now be top of the PL for 33 days in 2015-16, the same number that Spurs have been top in total since 1992. Serious.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 16, 2016Leicester deserve huge credit. They emerged from a testing festive period with five points in four games against Manchester City, Everton and Liverpool. Chelsea are gone, Manchester United are being shackled by Louis van Gaal’s turgid possession football, City are wildly inconsistent – so why can’t Leicester prove to be the exception to the rule?
It is the final third of the season where champions are forged and pretenders left behind. It is from now on where the Foxes will show us just how fantastic they are. They host Liverpool and travel to City and Arsenal in 11 days in February, ending the campaign at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge, a home fixture against Everton in between.
In the strangest of seasons, nothing should surprise us. After all, in Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante, they possess three of the season’s best players. Kasper Schmeichel and Marc Albrighton have shone too, yet Leicester’s squad lacks the title-winning calibre Arsenal and City possess.
It’s not just that they lack the depth or talent to sustain a title challenge for the next four months, only five teams have won the Premier League. Leicester’s story in a league becoming boringly predictable and a game ever more devoid of magic should be cheered, but their supporters will not be toasting a title victory come May 15.
