The Managers: Claudio Ranieri, 2015-2017

[Tuna]

Dilly ding, dilly dong

[enmac]

Statue is a must. 

[Sooper Steve's shin]

Still don’t think he gets enough credit for his management and tactics. Yes, we came out of the Great Escape season and from the outside you might assume that we carried momentum from there, but there were actually quite a lot of changes. 
 

Pearson finished up the season with three centre-halves (Morgan, Huth and Wasilewski), Ranieri took us back to four at the back. We lost our player of the season in Cambiasso and second top scorer David Nugent. He swapped the attacking focus from our 2014/15 top scorer Ulloa to Jamie Vardy and played Okazaki in behind. At the time, it was fairly bold to drop Ulloa to an impact sub role. 
 

In the early part of the season, he changed both full backs, introduced Kante (initially coming on as a sub on the wing!) and relied much more on Albrighton (who’d only played 20 games the previous season). James and King had the most appearances of our midfielders in 14/15 after Cambiasso, but Ranieri developed the Drinkwater-Kante combination. 
 

One thing I remember about the early weeks is that we suddenly seemed much better at seeing out games to the end. I recall Pearson’s time as quite chaotic and nervy at the end of games, but Ranieri instilled something that made us much less nervous. We had the run of (very Italian) 1-0 games at one point in the middle of the season that he managed to perfection. 
 

I don’t think the 40 point target started off as a particular tactic, it was a fairly legitimate target for a team that had just come mighty close to relegation. As our good start developed into a great one, it became a bit more of a focal point for relieving pressure - of course we weren’t thinking about the title or Europe after two or three months - but Claudio started to say it with a little glint in his eye as he began to think we might be well capable of surpassing it. 
 

We had everything go for us that season - the spirit, the amount of players peaking at the same time, nobody else really taking the fight to us etc. But there was a special touch from Claudio as he used his experience and tactical knowledge in exactly the right way. 

[Danizen]

 

I thought he was retiring but here he is rocking up at Fenerbahce

[Mendi]

On 02/06/2024 at 18:25, enmac said:

Statue is a must.