Premier League Hangover: Leicester's Title to Lose as Foxes Stand on Precipice

Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri is sticking to his self-imposed party line that the only thing his side has achieved this season is Premier League survival. 

With eight games to go, on the back of Monday night’s win over Newcastle United that takes them five points clear of Tottenham Hotspur, and 11 and 12 points ahead of Arsenal and Manchester City, respectively, the rest of the world—for this has become a global concern—watches on full in the knowledge we are observing a team on the precipice of achieving true sporting greatness.

Gary Lineker’s gushing ode to his hometown club, published in the Guardian this week, was by its own admission swimming in the type of sentimentality that makes Romeo’s confession of his infatuation with Juliet seem a little staid in comparison.

A personal love letter made public, it surmised perfectly not just what it is to be a supporter but also sport’s occasional ability—perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence—to transcend the confines of its usual parameters.

Lineker wrote:

"

What we are witnessing, should Leicester go on to win the title, is quite possibly the most unlikely triumph in the history of team sport.

A collection of individuals who couldn’t win a football match for love nor money a year ago have turned into an invincible force.

A team with a spirit and togetherness the like of which the game has seldom seen. All beautifully held together by the canny, inspirational—yes, inspirational—Tinkerman.

"

As Leicester’s fifth Beatle, the incongruous Nigel Pearson is equally at pains to point out, the Foxes’ story has its origins in last season’s great escape.

A brusque handshake to thank him for his part aside, it’s worth noting that to take the final eight games of last term and add them to the 30 of this, to make a full campaign, gives Leicester 82 points from their last 38 matches.

From the same period Tottenham and Manchester City have picked up 13 points fewer, while Arsenal (15 points fewer), Chelsea (22) and Manchester United (24) are even further in arrears.

In the reverse fixtures of the eight games Leicester have left to play, Ranieri’s side won six and drew two.

Speaking from Cheltenham this week, via the Sunday Times, Sir Alex Ferguson said of Leicester’s title chances: "Of course they can. I believe they will win it with three games to spare."

Leicester supporters will be praying English football’s most revered manager has not issued the proverbial kiss of death, but with each passing game that their side shows little sign of vertigo in these most vertiginous of surrounds, it will take a collapse of the Devon Loch variety for them to reach the final day without at least a chance of glory.

There was nothing transcendental about Leicester beating Newcastle, as Rafa Benitez made a typically animated debut in the away side’s dugout in his bow as the club’s new manager.

In any other circumstances, it was a game barely worth stifling a yawn for. Yet, placed in the context of Leicester’s most remarkable of seasons, it was as quietly gripping as victories over numerous heavyweights that have felt the cold slap of the King Power stadium canvas.

Like a rose that has somehow grown between two paving stones, Shinji Okazaki’s overhead scissor-kick winner was out of keeping with its environment and all the more striking for it.

Fitting that in a game almost solely about endeavour, an encounter as terse and tense as there has been all season despite neither goalkeeper making a save of note, it was the Japanese forward with three lungs who found a way for Leicester to win ugly so beautifully.

When Riyad Mahrez slung in a deep set piece from the right touchline, Newcastle twice had the opportunity to clear. Twice they failed to do so, twice Leicester kept the ball alive. It’s all about the fine margins, from the top to the bottom.

After Aleksandar Mitrovic’s defensive header barely cleared his own area, Marc Albrighton clipped the ball back into the box from the left. A stretching Steven Taylor could only nod back towards his own goal to inadvertently set up a mismatch at the back post between Jamie Vardy and Jack Colback.

All season Okazaki has been the straight man, a perfect foil for Vardy; Ernest Penfold to Vardy’s Danger Mouse. Here the roles were reversed, as Vardy bullied Colback in the air to nod back across goal.

In a season in which a casual observer could look at the top of the Premier League table and presume it had been printed upside down, it seemed oddly fitting that one of its most important goals would be scored from a similarly upside-down position.

With his back to goal, Okazaki channelled Pele in Escape to Victory as he propelled himself into the air to meet Vardy’s nod down with perfect timing and beat Rob Elliot with an exquisitely executed overhead kick. At the start of the season, Sylvester Stallone gallantly agreed to have his leg broken by team-mate Robert Huth so Kasper Schmeichel could play in goal.

It is victories from wars of attrition that win titles and help to calcify collectives from allowing self-doubt to creep in when picture-book moments seem against the odds.

Okazaki’s goal was Leicester’s solitary shot on target over the 90 minutes. It may prove to the season’s most defining moment. It was also his first-ever goal at the King Power Stadium. Leicester could win the title with a second striker who to date has scored five goals all season.

With Vardy and Mahrez at times peripheral, as Newcastle sat deep and did a largely solid job in containing the Premier League’s most predatory pair, it was a night for the supporting cast to show their chops.

This was a night when Huth headers and Wes Morgan blocks were the star attraction. Leicester work so wonderfully because they are a side with zero egos.

Without wishing to out sentimentalise Lineker, they recall the line the great American Football coach Vince Lombardi once used to describe his Green Bay Packers side: "Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another."

Huth knows his limitations, never goes touch tight but drops a yard to compensate for his relative lack of pace. While his physical prowess is rightly garlanded, what’s underrated is his ability to read situations and act accordingly. The fact he’d head a brick back over the halfway line from his own penalty area if the opposition lobbed one in his direction is admittedly an advantage, too.

Morgan, too, has had a similarly outstanding season. On the night, though, his most mesmerising moment arrived in the second half when he found himself in possession inside Newcastle's box. His attempt to shimmy and drop a shoulder had all the sureness of foot of a mountain bear on roller skates trying to deliver a tray of drinks. After that he stuck to his own area. Like Huth, Leicester’s infectiously enthusiastic captain knows what is best left to Mahrez and Co.

The sight of Mahrez tracking all the way back to the halfway line to dispossess Georginio Wijnaldum after Newcastle had broken from a free-kick the Algerian had taken from the byline perfectly surmised how there was no way Leicester were going to become complacent, either on the night or in the rest of the season.

N'Golo Kante's impeccable dominance of the midfield was exemplary to the point it was hard to disagree with Ferguson's assessment that the Leicester man has been the season's best player "by a long way," per the Sunday Times.

In the 25 minutes prior to Okazaki’s out-of-the-blue intervention, Newcastle had been the better side.

The much-maligned Moussa Sissoko set the tone in the opening few seconds when he raced 50 yards to chase down a shaky Morgan back pass that left Schmeichel a little flustered. Over the course of the 90 minutes, Newcastle covered 110.96 kilometres to Leicester’s 109.73 km, per Sky Sports. Benitez can have no complaints about the commitment his side showed, albeit on a night when finesse was in short supply.

In the early sparring, Ayoze Perez, Colback and Sissoko had Benitez nervously checking the finer details of a three-year contract that includes an escape clause if Newcastle are relegated. A hat-trick of presentable chances squandered reminded their new incumbent that this is a side as profligate as it is porous.

It was a measure of their improvement, or an indication of the trough Benitez is working from, that the five shots Newcastle had in the opening 20 minutes matched the whole of their last away game against Stoke City.

It was at the back where the Benitez factor seemed most visibly evident, though.

Directing his defence to sit deep to negate the threat of Vardy getting in behind, Benitez had his side well-organised as Newcastle’s full-backs played narrow to ensure there were no pockets of space in between wide areas and the centre-halves.

Ever the pragmatist, the challenge of shoring up a Newcastle back line that has now conceded 54 goals this season (117 and counting for the past two campaigns combined) will see Benitez wake with a spring in his step, toothbrush in one hand and clipboard in the other. Steve McClaren used to weep into his pillow and plead with his mother not to make him go to work.

In just a few training sessions, Benitez has clearly managed to get across to his players how he wants them to be set up. Newcastle adopted a lot tighter shape, a classic Benitez trait, and even his biggest detractors would accept he will instill in his back four a coherence criminally absent under his predecessor. His biggest challenge will come at the other end of the field.

Only Aston Villa have scored fewer than Newcastle’s 28 goals this season, with a paltry seven coming away from St. James’ Park.

As a microcosm of their travails in front of goal, the sight of Mitrovic teeing up substitute Siem de Jong with six minutes left to play when a striker with even an iota of confidence would have taken on the shot themselves was illuminating; the Dutchman’s subsequent attempt, almost apologetic in its execution, was similarly depressing.

With the small matter of the Tyne-Wear derby up next on Sunday, Benitez seemed overall to be quietly content with how his bow as Newcastle United manager had played out, per BBC Sport: 

"

With this commitment on the pitch we can do it.

We have one full week and we need to improve these little things. It's a question of having a bit of luck, but we have to think about the positives and we are creating chances.

We know our next game against Sunderland will be important for everyone, but I have a feeling the fans are really good and they are the number 12 for the next game.

"

The final word, though, must go to the man of the moment, the man of the season, Ranieri.

"Of course our fans are dreaming but I don’t look at the table, I look at the next match. The fans must dream but we must continue to stay calm,” he concluded, as per the Telegraph. 

"I understand the city is behind us pushing and there is so much noise around the world and all the people are speaking about Leicester but we must stay calm and do our job."

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"

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— Fletch And Sav (@FletchAndSav) March 13, 2016"

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