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I can't let Leicester City's fantastic achievement of winning the English Premiership go without mention.  Looking certain for relegation halfway through last season and 5,000 to 1 against winning at the start of this season, they have defied the odds and deservedly won the title with 2 games to spare.  And they have done it with a bunch of players who are basically the same as were staring relegation in the face last year.  This is a team which has been assembled at a cost of a small fraction of what the big name clubs in England spend.  It is absolutely remarkable by any standards.  It is not often that an un-fancied team comes through to win a big cup competition but this is a much, much bigger achievement than that.  Winning a cup requires maybe 2 or 3 excellent performances and maybe a bit of luck.  To win a league of 38 matches requires consistency over the whole season.  To have done that in one of the strongest leagues in the world is astonishing.  This is truly one of the great stories, not just of football, but of any sport.

What it shows without doubt, is that the team is greater than the sum of it's parts.  Of course you need good players, but you need to play to their strengths and to get the best out of them.  That is what Ranieri has done.  He has come in and assessed the players and developed a way of playing that suits the team.  Leicester have shown the world that football is a team game - and how!

But there are some interesting coincidences in Leicester's success.  The last time a Midlands club lifted the English title was in 1981 when Villa won.  Villa, of course have been relegated this year but back in 1981 Leicester were relegated.  The previous time a Midlands club won the title was in 1978 when Nottingham Forest won.  It so happens that Leicester were relegated in that season too!  

A further quirk here is that after their title successes, both Forest and Villa then went on to win the European cup the following season.  Leicester surely can't repeat that - can they?

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Whilst I agree that the story at Leicester is a remarkable one turning from battling relegation last season to winning the English Premiership this whilst leaving wealthier and more prestigious rivals in their wake I don't quite buy the fairy tail element that the media are portraying.

The Foxes are less well resourced than some but they still have an annual budget of tens of millions and a billionaire owner. A huge and remarkable achievement yes but no David slays Goliath fairy tale..

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Agreed, its a great achievement and brings positive hope to all teams and fans. After reading that the following has happened with titles elsewhere - Celtic 5 in a row, same as Juventus, Bayern Munich 4 in a row, Basel 7 in a row, PSG 4 in a row, its refreshing to see an alternative winner in any leagues these days - while in England there have been some different winners the league is dominated by 4 clubs (Man U, Man C, Chelsea, Arsenal - other than Blackburn nobody else has won a title there in almost 25 years) . In Scotland we are slated for having a duopoly however how is elsewhere in Europe different. Leicester city have shown that a team of players who work hard, are well organised and want to play for success and not just money can achieve - it should be a lesson to all in football and provide inspiration to all teams even those up here like Hearts and Aberdeen that it is possible to break a dominance and overcome the financial gap.

The positive for Leicester has to be that they are now set for direct qualification into the Champions League group stages and a £150m plus windfall where they can potentially build on the success or at least retain the players. Its inevitable that some may get picked off by large offers from the clubs that buy success these days but there should be a more even playing field for Leicester to compete - it would be a shame to see them go the way of Blackburn, or even its possible to draw some similarity with ourselves where success and over-achievement provides a platform for players to become the targets for bigger clubs and end up with a big rebuild job and decimated squad. 

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Yes, many congratulations to Leicester.  In all the adulation being heaped on Ranieri (deservedly), I see Nigel Pearson never gets a mention, and yet, this is largely the same team that he built last season and which, against everyone's expectation, managed to avoid relegation.  Funny old game is it not?

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Last night I was hearing quite a lot of recognition of Pearson's role in laying the foundation and this is certainly something Ranieri himself acknowledges.  There is a world of difference between  Ranieri and Hughes.  Ranieri went into a struggling club, identified the strengths, built the tactics around those strengths and as a result, vastly improved the team.  I'll not get into any analysis of Hughes' impact on ICT on this thread.

I take Kingsmills' point about Leicester being a big club but they are still 17th in the Premiership in terms both of value of what they have paid for the squad and what the wage bill is.  It would be a bit like making the Scottish Premiership into a 20 club league and having Queen of the South winning it.

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After initially wondering if Jamie Vardy was in the Fleetwood side that played us in 2010 (he wasn't, he signed for them in 2011) I've been trying to think of connections (however tenuous!) between us and Leicester City.

  • Billy Mckay, Johnny Hayes, Lee Cox and Eric Odhiambo all started out at Leicester
  • Caledonian FC sold Kevin MacDonald to Leicester in the early 80's, leading to a friendly between the sides which Leicester won 4-0 (but we should have had a penalty!).  For me and quite a few other Invernesians, I'm sure, Leicester were the first English team I ever saw play.
  • Kasper Schmeichel has played at TCS, for Falkirk
  • Best of all in terms of tenuousness - a former flatmate of Riyad Mahrez has played at TCS!  Matthias Pogba for Partick (they played together at Quimper).

What other loose connections are there?

 

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In the 60s Alex Bowman was signed by Leicester, straight from Caledonian I think.  He also played for Clach and Thistle as well as Nairn.  Seemingly he turned down Aberdeen and West Brom to move down there, but I don't think he ever played a first team game.

Should probably be mentioned as well that when Schmeichel played for Falkirk, he was teammates with Russell Latapy and was managed by Yogi Hughes!

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On 3 May 2016 at 9:59 AM, Kingsmills said:

Whilst I agree that the story at Leicester is a remarkable one turning from battling relegation last season to winning the English Premiership this whilst leaving wealthier and more prestigious rivals in their wake I don't quite buy the fairy tail element that the media are portraying.

The Foxes are less well resourced than some but they still have an annual budget of tens of millions and a billionaire owner. A huge and remarkable achievement yes but no David slays Goliath fairy tale..

This image clearly shows that you're wrong. Whilst they may have a 'high by our standards' budget, it's actually relatively very low, in fact one of the lowest in their league. Regardless of the amount of money in their owners bank account.

this is very much a David slays Goliath fairy tale. If the mighty ICT won the spiffle on out humble budget it would be regarded as such and rightly so. Even though Wick Academy would decry our massive budget.

 

image.jpeg

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On 03/05/2016 at 9:59 AM, Kingsmills said:

Whilst I agree that the story at Leicester is a remarkable one turning from battling relegation last season to winning the English Premiership this whilst leaving wealthier and more prestigious rivals in their wake I don't quite buy the fairy tail element that the media are portraying.

The Foxes are less well resourced than some but they still have an annual budget of tens of millions and a billionaire owner. A huge and remarkable achievement yes but no David slays Goliath fairy tale..

To be fair Leicesters whole squad cost less than City paid for De Bruyne

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Another fact, Manchester United spent more money in the last two years, than Leicester spent in their entire history.

 

Seem to remember Leicester used to do a few pre season tours up here in the Highlands. 

Nothing to do with ICT, but was at a dinner with Gary Lineker a few years back, and when he found out there were a few Scots present, he talked about Jock Wallace when he was manager, at half time during one game he had Mr Lineker by the throat up against the dressing room wall, screaming and balling at him and spraying his face with shouted spittal ( his words ) Anyway, he said, he felt a bit peed off, as they were two nil up, and he had scored both goals. Went on to say that Scottish managers were always the most passionate he ever came across.

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