In the build up to the new season no one gave Midland Club Leicester City a chance to even finish in the top 6 and qualify for a European competition. The reason is that Leicester had only survived relegation a season before after been in the drop
zone from August until December all in 2014. It was not until 2015 that the fans saw the real Leicester City. Another reason the impact of Leicester was downplayed was because of the managerial change in the summer. Long standing manager Nigel Pearson resigned after a controversy involving his player son in the Club and was replaced by "Willy Fox" Claudio Ranieri.
Ranieri was addressed as the "Tinker Man" all through his time at Chelsea mainly because he liked changing and rotating his players and rarely played the same starting line-up consecutively . Also apart from qualifying for the 2003/2004 Champions League semi-final with Chelsea , he had failed woefully in Valencia, Juventus and was only average in Roma, Monaco and Inter Milan without an trophy to show for his time there. In his last coaching job just few weeks to taking over from Pearson, Ranieri had taken over from a Greek team that made the second-round of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil under current Portuguese coach Fernando Santos, leaving them in the dead after losing to lowly ranked Faroe Island, and unable to qualify them for the European Championship In France in the summer for the first time in 12 years.
Under Ranieri everything has clicked for Leicester as the likes of Jamie Vardy, Okazaki and Riyad Mahrez have attacking with zeal and intensity, while the likes of N'golo Kante and Danny Drinkwater have shielded the perfect defensive pairings of Morgan and Robert Huth with goalkeeper Kasper Schmichel doing his job in the best possible way.
Under Ranieri , Leicester City currently top the Premier League table with 63 points from 30 games (a ratio of 2.1 points per game). Leicester have nine more games to pls ph before the end of the season are five pints ahead of second placed Tottenham. The team play quick and direct counter attacking football with the likes of Marc Albrington , Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez all blessed with pace. Kante meanwhile helps to recover the possession and intercept passes and hence initiates attack. Leicester have also garnered 34 points away from home which is five more than the closest best away Premier league team. They also have less of the ball and possession which is the third worst team in possession in the League. To balance that the team have the most passes in the final third of any opposition in the league which shows their effectiveness with their little possession , which is a sharp and quick transition from defence to attack as witnessed by Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.
Leicester also have the most wins in the league (18 in 30 games) and least defeat (3 in 30 games) and this is mainly due to their ability to win games from losing positions. Also worthy of mentioning is that most of Leicester players were players deemed not to be good enough in their previous clubs as the list goes Christian Fuchs (Schalke 04), Marc Albrington (Aston Villa), Danny Drinkwater (Manchester United), Danny Simpson (QPR) to mention but a few.
While the season still hasn't ended, it is clear that the current rich form of Leicester is more than coincidence. Leicester might not be league winners yet but surely no one will argue the have been the best team in the league this season . Claudio Ranieri has thus gone from "Tinker Man to Godfather" in a short space of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment