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jonthefox

The "do they mean us?" thread

By jonthefox, in Leicester City Forum

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davieG

davieG

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http://statsbomb.com/2016/02/leicester-and-liverpool-when-it-goes-your-way-and-when-it-doesnt/?


 


When it goes your way…


In losing to Leicester this weekend, Manchester City not only gave away crucial points to a title rival, they once again failed to record consecutive victories, a run that goes all the way back to September.  The very same month that featured them handsomely leading the league after recording a string of victories without conceding.  Since then they have gone 9-5-6 a good deal less than title form; they have failed to win more often than they have won.  Given their fantastic wealth and extremely talented squad, this is a disappointing return; not quite Chelsea, but nonetheless below expectation.  In advance of Guardiola they appear to have gone lame: injuries have bitten hard, with Navas, Nasri, De Bruyne, Mangala, Kompany and Bony all missing this game and a slew of kids on the bench.  Options were limited and the sight of Martin Demichelis facing the energy of Shinji Okazaki and raw pace of Jamie Vardy looked potentially troublesome, and so it was.


Robert Huth continued his goalscoring form, Riyad Mahrez put another bat-signal up to Spain and it felt that we learned a lot more about City’s lack of youth integration and declining legs than anything else.


For Leicester, when you’re a team having a season for the ages and your journeyman centre back scores three goals in two matches to secure away victories against top four rivals, it’s certain that things are going your way.


Leicester spent the first half of this remarkable season winning matches featuring a ton of goals. Their defence wasn’t particularly effective at repelling shots or goals but high rates of shot conversion and the wonderful form of Vardy and Mahrez were enough to propel them towards the top of the league. Going into the tricky section of their fixture list, starting with Man Utd at the King Power back at the end of November, they were converting all their shots at a high rate of 15% which had effectively powered their 8-4-1  standing.


During the tougher looking 12 games since–including two matches against Liverpool and Manchester City, plus games against Chelsea and Tottenham– they are converting their shots at 14%; only a marginal decline. This has helped them go 7-4-1 but this time the biggest factor powering their run has been their save rate for in these games they only have conceded seven times from 40 shots on target, a crazily high rate of 82.5%. Spin that out to all shots and Leicester’s opposition since December have been converting under one in twenty against a usual league average of around one in ten.  All these rates tend to fluctuate through a season and rarely sustain for too long at either extremely high or low levels. For Leicester, so far, large parts of them have.


When you base a season for the ages on year long super high conversion rates then ride a tough schedule with an extremely high save rate, it’s clear that things are going your way.


For now Leicester’s 14.2% all shot conversion rate places them 4th in a list of teams during the era for which data is public (2009-10 onwards). The teams above need little introduction, each well known for attacking prowess that propelled title challenges: 2013-14 Manchester City and Liverpool and 2012-13 Manchester United. Two titles and a second place finish for these three, yet the following season found a second for City, a 6th for Liverpool and a 7th for Moyes’ Manchester United.  Leicester are in good, but unsustainable, company here. Each team brilliant in its own way, yet also at the absolute top end of conversion.


And Vardy and Mahrez. One imagines legions of scouts bulking out non-league attendances looking for wayward teenagers with an eye for goal, or caravan tours around Ligue 2 grounds looking for players with a magic left foot.  That is a legacy will run long into the future and will likely have no yield.  Little to add to the last time I mentioned them, they have been brilliant, Mahrez especially; but to be an unheralded smaller team and find one break out player of the year candidate? That is a pleasant benefit to enjoy, but to have two? Yep, things are going your way.


Regarding squad depth, there is still a huge gap between Mahrez and Vardy or indeed, Kante or Drinkwater and any replacements, one that long term will not be bridged by either of their sale or injury. The continued fitness of the key men in a comparatively small squad is of paramount importance, as it is for any team, but whoever replaces them is sub-par for Leicester’s current level.  Having maintained a steady team, and been free from injury, this is yet another aspect in which things have gone Leicester’s way.


But what of the money clubs in this league? These teams are usually on the sharp end of title runs. Surely, they couldn’t all show vulnerabilities together, in the same season? Vast wealth has been spent by not only Manchester City but Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle. With such investment surely one or more of these teams could manage a sustained run at the title? Well…


  • Chelsea imploded like no other Champion before

  • Arsenal have suffered traditional injuries and undershot expected goal numbers by heroic volumes, see this from Will Gurpinar-Morgan for detail
  • Manchester United continue to be stuck in transition, pootling along in minor European positions

  • Weird chaos for Liverpool

When did this last happen?


It’s been a while: the last time a team would have been five points clear of one of the traditional big clubs with a mere 53 points after 25 games was 2001-02. Newcastle had 49 points then and Manchester United and Arsenal 48.


For Leicester to lead with 53 points is unusual too; go back to 2002-03 to find Arsenal on 53, three points clear of Manchester United.  Over the last ten seasons the average points taken after 25 games is 59.4, the average for second place is 54.1. For the league to be so compressed points-wise has become an unusual event, yet here we are; beyond rational prediction. Yet when things are going your way…


Nothing here is intended to denigrate Leicester’s achievements, but their success will generate a ton of analysis attempting to look at the makings of a success story and a keenness from other aspirational clubs to mould a similar run. If Leicester were backing up this run with top notch shooting or expected goal numbers, there would be every reason to mimic them, but they aren’t. Is it likely that we shall reflect on this in years to come as the birth of “anti-taka” with half the league adapting their style by gluing a couple of Olympic sprinters onto an eight man defence? One suspects not.


There has been much pleasure gained from Leicester’s ascent to the top of the table. It has provided a fascinating new twist to a league that had in recent years become largely predictable but the true praise for them can be reserved for Ranieri’s skill in improving them; not to their current status at the top, but from being a genuine lower half team last season to legitimate European contenders this.  For that is likely their true level; with this team, with fitness, with a slight element of surprise, this team is an above par team in the league, their shots and expected goal numbers peg them as lower tier European contenders, but if they fall to 3rd or 4th, to chastise them for failing to maintain a lead will be misguided; they will still have hit a very high mark. If they start next season and find themselves in the top half but a mile behind the top four, they will still have found a significantly improved level.  Liverpool in 2013-14 learned that special players can power long runs deep into the season, but they also learned that without them and given reversion over time, it can be very different. But when everything goes your way, it’s best to enjoy the ride before it stops.


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http://statsbomb.com/2016/02/leicester-and-liverpool-when-it-goes-your-way-and-when-it-doesnt/?

 

When it goes your way…

In losing to Leicester this weekend, Manchester City not only gave away crucial points to a title rival, they once again failed to record consecutive victories, a run that goes all the way back to September.  The very same month that featured them handsomely leading the league after recording a string of victories without conceding.  Since then they have gone 9-5-6 a good deal less than title form; they have failed to win more often than they have won.  Given their fantastic wealth and extremely talented squad, this is a disappointing return; not quite Chelsea, but nonetheless below expectation.  In advance of Guardiola they appear to have gone lame: injuries have bitten hard, with Navas, Nasri, De Bruyne, Mangala, Kompany and Bony all missing this game and a slew of kids on the bench.  Options were limited and the sight of Martin Demichelis facing the energy of Shinji Okazaki and raw pace of Jamie Vardy looked potentially troublesome, and so it was.

Robert Huth continued his goalscoring form, Riyad Mahrez put another bat-signal up to Spain and it felt that we learned a lot more about City’s lack of youth integration and declining legs than anything else.

For Leicester, when you’re a team having a season for the ages and your journeyman centre back scores three goals in two matches to secure away victories against top four rivals, it’s certain that things are going your way.

Leicester spent the first half of this remarkable season winning matches featuring a ton of goals. Their defence wasn’t particularly effective at repelling shots or goals but high rates of shot conversion and the wonderful form of Vardy and Mahrez were enough to propel them towards the top of the league. Going into the tricky section of their fixture list, starting with Man Utd at the King Power back at the end of November, they were converting all their shots at a high rate of 15% which had effectively powered their 8-4-1  standing.

During the tougher looking 12 games since–including two matches against Liverpool and Manchester City, plus games against Chelsea and Tottenham– they are converting their shots at 14%; only a marginal decline. This has helped them go 7-4-1 but this time the biggest factor powering their run has been their save rate for in these games they only have conceded seven times from 40 shots on target, a crazily high rate of 82.5%. Spin that out to all shots and Leicester’s opposition since December have been converting under one in twenty against a usual league average of around one in ten.  All these rates tend to fluctuate through a season and rarely sustain for too long at either extremely high or low levels. For Leicester, so far, large parts of them have.

When you base a season for the ages on year long super high conversion rates then ride a tough schedule with an extremely high save rate, it’s clear that things are going your way.

For now Leicester’s 14.2% all shot conversion rate places them 4th in a list of teams during the era for which data is public (2009-10 onwards). The teams above need little introduction, each well known for attacking prowess that propelled title challenges: 2013-14 Manchester City and Liverpool and 2012-13 Manchester United. Two titles and a second place finish for these three, yet the following season found a second for City, a 6th for Liverpool and a 7th for Moyes’ Manchester United.  Leicester are in good, but unsustainable, company here. Each team brilliant in its own way, yet also at the absolute top end of conversion.

And Vardy and Mahrez. One imagines legions of scouts bulking out non-league attendances looking for wayward teenagers with an eye for goal, or caravan tours around Ligue 2 grounds looking for players with a magic left foot.  That is a legacy will run long into the future and will likely have no yield.  Little to add to the last time I mentioned them, they have been brilliant, Mahrez especially; but to be an unheralded smaller team and find one break out player of the year candidate? That is a pleasant benefit to enjoy, but to have two? Yep, things are going your way.

Regarding squad depth, there is still a huge gap between Mahrez and Vardy or indeed, Kante or Drinkwater and any replacements, one that long term will not be bridged by either of their sale or injury. The continued fitness of the key men in a comparatively small squad is of paramount importance, as it is for any team, but whoever replaces them is sub-par for Leicester’s current level.  Having maintained a steady team, and been free from injury, this is yet another aspect in which things have gone Leicester’s way.

But what of the money clubs in this league? These teams are usually on the sharp end of title runs. Surely, they couldn’t all show vulnerabilities together, in the same season? Vast wealth has been spent by not only Manchester City but Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle. With such investment surely one or more of these teams could manage a sustained run at the title? Well…

  • Chelsea imploded like no other Champion before
  • Arsenal have suffered traditional injuries and undershot expected goal numbers by heroic volumes, see this from Will Gurpinar-Morgan for detail
  • Manchester United continue to be stuck in transition, pootling along in minor European positions
  • Weird chaos for Liverpool
When did this last happen?

It’s been a while: the last time a team would have been five points clear of one of the traditional big clubs with a mere 53 points after 25 games was 2001-02. Newcastle had 49 points then and Manchester United and Arsenal 48.

For Leicester to lead with 53 points is unusual too; go back to 2002-03 to find Arsenal on 53, three points clear of Manchester United.  Over the last ten seasons the average points taken after 25 games is 59.4, the average for second place is 54.1. For the league to be so compressed points-wise has become an unusual event, yet here we are; beyond rational prediction. Yet when things are going your way…

Nothing here is intended to denigrate Leicester’s achievements, but their success will generate a ton of analysis attempting to look at the makings of a success story and a keenness from other aspirational clubs to mould a similar run. If Leicester were backing up this run with top notch shooting or expected goal numbers, there would be every reason to mimic them, but they aren’t. Is it likely that we shall reflect on this in years to come as the birth of “anti-taka” with half the league adapting their style by gluing a couple of Olympic sprinters onto an eight man defence? One suspects not.

There has been much pleasure gained from Leicester’s ascent to the top of the table. It has provided a fascinating new twist to a league that had in recent years become largely predictable but the true praise for them can be reserved for Ranieri’s skill in improving them; not to their current status at the top, but from being a genuine lower half team last season to legitimate European contenders this.  For that is likely their true level; with this team, with fitness, with a slight element of surprise, this team is an above par team in the league, their shots and expected goal numbers peg them as lower tier European contenders, but if they fall to 3rd or 4th, to chastise them for failing to maintain a lead will be misguided; they will still have hit a very high mark. If they start next season and find themselves in the top half but a mile behind the top four, they will still have found a significantly improved level.  Liverpool in 2013-14 learned that special players can power long runs deep into the season, but they also learned that without them and given reversion over time, it can be very different. But when everything goes your way, it’s best to enjoy the ride before it stops.

 

 

There is a load of crap in that article, Huth a journeyman? being on your 4th club at 31 is not a journey man!

What the fvck is a bat signal to Spain?

Is it really a surprise that the last time the traditional big 4 were on 48 points was when a non big 4 team was top? You expand the big 4 to 5 or 6 Spurs have also been taking points off the "big 4" it is no surprise they are dropping points because there are more teams capable of taking points off them.

 

Being injury free is not luck, we have the best facilities money can buy, we take every precaution and, according to Ranieri, have reduced the intensity of the training giving players more time off and chance to recuperate. 

 

What  the fvck does this mean: " If Leicester were backing up this run with top notch shooting or expected goal numbers, there would be every reason to mimic them, but they aren’t."

 

When you have just said this:  " Going into the tricky section of their fixture list, starting with Man Utd at the King Power back at the end of November, they were converting all their shots at a high rate of 15% which had effectively powered their 8-4-1 standing.

During the tougher looking 12 games since–including two matches against Liverpool and Manchester City, plus games against Chelsea and Tottenham– they are converting their shots at 14%" if that isn't top notch shooting then what is?

 

That article really annoyed me, I'm not sure why, but it did.

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foxfanazer

foxfanazer

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Apparently we cheated our way out of the championship according to a Forest fan.

http://www.forestforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=44157&page=13

Did we ever fail FFP or am I missing something. Also how much did our promotion winning side actually cost? Far less than their underachieving scrotes I'd guess.

Just say you don't like us, don't resort to crap like this

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Captain...

Captain...

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Apparently we cheated our way out of the championship according to a Forest fan.

http://www.forestforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=44157&page=13

 

At  least he is being pulled up on it, we "cheated" in the same way they did, but they are being punished for it we aren't (except we are, just with fines rather than transfer embargoes as the football league has no authority over us).

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Jon the Hat

Jon the Hat

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The guy has a point, but then if we played like this is a more typical season we would probably scrape into the Champions league, which would be an amazing achievement, albeit against a backdrop of business as usual at the top.  The fact that our rise has coincided with others underperforming their expectations is a little lucky, but you cant take away that we have made the most of that.

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davieG

davieG

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Five reasons why fantastic Foxes can complete title dream

Date published: Monday 8th February 2016 10:06

Mahrez.png

Riyad Mahrez: Celebrates his goal at Man City

 

With Leicester five points clear at the Premier League summit, we list five reasons why the Foxes could complete the ‘impossible dream’ of winning the title this season.

Leicester’s stunning 3-1 victory at Manchester City has taken Claudio Ranieri’s side a step closer to winning the Barclays Premier League.

The Foxes, who have lost on just two occasions this season, are five points clear of their nearest challengers with only 13 matches remaining.

Our article after match on Saturday focused on why the Foxes are ‘simply brilliant and brilliantly simple’ – and here we look at five reasons why Leicester, now installed as the bookmakers’ favourites, could complete the impossible dream and win the title.

1. Record-breaker Vardy

Jamie-Vardy.jpg

Every championship-winning side needs a goalgetter and in Jamie Vardy, Leicester have got the league’s top scorer. The 29-year-old, who broke Ruud van Nistelrooy’s long-standing record of scoring in 10 consecutive Premier League matches, has netted on 18 occasions for the Foxes. In what has been a remarkable campaign for the former non-league nobody, Vardy is playing with confidence – as his wonder goal against Liverpool demonstrated – and if he remains fit and injury-free there is no reason why his goals cannot fire Leicester to the title.

2. Magic Mahrez

Has there been a better player in the Premier League than Riyad Mahrez? The £400,000 (yes, £400,000) signing from French second division side Le Havre has been on a different level for the Foxes this season. Mahrez, on the scoresheet in Leicester’s victory at the Etihad on Saturday, has been involved in 24 Premier League goals – scored 14 and assisted 10 – which is a record that cannot be bettered.

3. Dominant defence

Huth.jpg

While Vardy and Mahrez have been taken most of the plaudits this season, Leicester’s vastly-improved defence must also earn recognition. After conceding two goals against Sunderland on the opening day of the season, and nine against Aston Villa, Stoke and Arsenal in September, the Foxes have worked hard on plugging their leaky backline. Spearheaded by Wes Morgan, formerly of Nottingham Forest and Robert Huth, frozen out by Stoke, and marshalled by Danny Drinkwater and N’Golo Kante, Leicester have subsequently created one of the meanest defences in the league, Notable clean sheets against Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool have followed.

4. Sole objective

While Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham all have European exploits to deal with as well as the FA Cup, Leicester’s only concern is the Premier League. And their run-in does not look to bad either. After they travel to Arsenal next Sunday, Leicester’s ensuing five fixtures are against Norwich, West Brom, Watford, Newcastle and Crystal Palace.

5. Team spirit

Robert-Huth.jpg

While Leicester may not have a team of superstars, their team spirit is unrivalled. Following their victory at Manchester City on Saturday, manager Claudio Ranieri said: “We are 11 when we go on to the field and in all my career I don’t think I have known a team as strong at being together.” And it is that kind of togetherness which the fans at the King Power Stadium are feeding off. Indeed you will struggle to find a better atmosphere in the Premier League right now and with seven of their 13 remaining matches at home, the Leicester supporters could be the final piece of the jigsaw in this incredible story.

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Fox Ulike

Fox Ulike

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Posted (edited)

The guy has a point, but then if we played like this is a more typical season we would probably scrape into the Champions league, which would be an amazing achievement, albeit against a backdrop of business as usual at the top.  The fact that our rise has coincided with others underperforming their expectations is a little lucky, but you cant take away that we have made the most of that.

 

I don't agree. Look at the league this time last year:

 

 

1 Chelsea 54

2 Manchester City 47

3 Southampton 45

4 Manchester United 43

5 Tottenham Hotspur 43

6 Arsenal 42

7 Liverpool

 8 West Ham United 36

 

 

It's the same teams. Six of the eight are the same last year as this year.

 

Arsenal are doing better that last year. Spurs are doing better. Man United are the same. We'd still be four points above Man City if we'd done as well last season. We'd still be 10 above Man United.

 

The only surprising thing is that us and Chelsea have done a body swap!

 

That single fact doesn't justify the article's assertion that "everything has gone our way".

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Soar Fox

Soar Fox

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The top sides are 'underperforming' becasue teams like us aren't afraid of them anymore. We go into games looking for the win rater than parking the bus

If that was Arsenal away at the Etihad on Saturday they would have gone there packed the midfield, played one up top and would settle for a nil nil draw.

We went there showed no fear and played the same way we mostly have all season. Not many teams go to Manchester City and play 2 upfront.

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Captain...

Captain...

Posted
Posted

The guy has a point, but then if we played like this is a more typical season we would probably scrape into the Champions league, which would be an amazing achievement, albeit against a backdrop of business as usual at the top.  The fact that our rise has coincided with others underperforming their expectations is a little lucky, but you cant take away that we have made the most of that.

 

But this isn't a typical season by virtue of the fact we have taken 53 points, including taking plenty of points off the big boys.

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EnderbyFox

EnderbyFox

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This is blocked for me too.  :(

 

blocked at work, any chance of a copy paste?

 

t’s not original to recognise N’Golo Kante’s role in the Leicester City side this season, primarily because what he gives to Claudio Ranieri’s team is so glaringly apparent. Kante is a highly visible player and, now that he’s widely appreciated for what he is, barely a game passes without his reputation swelling.
 
Because of the way Leicester play and because they prioritise core disciplines like hard-work and organisation, it’s tempting however to view the French midfielder solely in those same terms. In a way, that’s quite right: he does work extremely hard and his ability to deny opponents space and restrict their time on the ball is one of the established reasons as to why Leicester are so difficult to break down. Ranieri’s players don’t allow a lot of space in front of their penalty-box and they’re very effective at forcing teams into formulaic passages of play.
 
Kante is part of that and the screening detail he performs in front of Robert Huth and Wes Morgan – alongside Danny Drinkwater – has allowed Leicester to congest that area and make it extremely difficult for centre-based creative players to have any influence against them. That’s presumably exactly as Ranieri intended: Huth and Morgan are physically imposing without being particularly mobile, so limiting their exposure to through-balls and one-touch movement in their own area is highly logical.
 
Leicester have been very good at ensuring that they’re attacked on their own terms: with lots of crosses from wide areas and with a generally slow rhythm.
 
Kante has been the most visible part of that. Leicester fans won’t need telling, but without him their side would be far more vulnerable and wouldn’t be anything like as proficient at denying space in their defensive third. However, without meaning to dilute what he does without the ball, maybe too much emphasis is placed on that part of Kante’s game? Or, at the least, perhaps he’s not afforded enough recognition for what he’s able to do with it.
 
He’s quite similar to Ramires, Chelsea’s recently departed Brazilian. During his first two seasons at Stamford Bridge, Jose Mourinho was able to develop an interesting tactical wrinkle by employing Ramires in a twin role. Being both impressively athletic and a highly effective ball-winner, he was able to fit perfectly into the counter-attacking structure that Mourinho typically employed in marquee games away from home. He would use the midfielder to not only help absorb pressure, but also as a means of creating short-handed situations when Chelsea sprung out of their own half.
 
Kante is used in much the same way at times. Leicester prefer to play on the back-foot and invite teams onto them. They’re good enough defensively to do that, but also possess enough pace at the top of their formation to exploit the resultant gaps which occur as teams commit greater numbers.
 
Again, that’s very well-known and frequently discussed – but generally not in a way that involves Kante. Jamie Vardy’s speed and elusiveness in the channels is mentioned after nearly every Leicester game and Riyad Mahrez’s value in one-on-one situations has been covered just as regularly. In recent weeks, Shinji Okazaki has become a more prominent part of that unit, too, and he’s also naturally suited to playing within such a system. Okazaki is a intelligent player who is positionally versatile and, as such, is very effective at maximising numerical advantages as and when they occur.
 
The secondary value to Kante, then, is his ability to perform an auxiliary attacking role. He is not a destroyer and nor is he the kind of holding midfielder who retrieves possession, equips a teammate, and then just drops back behind the ball – he’s far more adventurous and it’s that dexterity which has made game-planning against his team so very difficult. He’s a throw-back: an authentic box-to-box player with an unusually broad range of abilities.
 
Screen-Shot-2016-02-08-at-09.01.34.png
Successful (green) tackles (crosses), interceptions (diamonds) and clearances (circles). Via
 
Once the post mortem on Saturday’s defeat has been conducted, Manchester City’s coaching staff will likely conclude that their own players contributed significantly to their downfall. They’ll be right. City were defensively atrocious and all three of the goals they conceded could have been prevented. Nicolas Otamendi and Martin Demichelis were a continual liability, were frequently weak in the tackle, and had no obvious chemistry with their respective full-backs. Equally, though, that defensive unit was regularly left exposed. The players in front of them – at different times a combination of Fernandinho, Yaya Toure and Fernando – were static, ineffective, and appeared to struggle with the game’s transitions.
 
They looked like a group of players who had been caught cold, as if the way Leicester played had taken them completely by surprise.
 
By contrast, Kante and Drinkwater operated perfectly. The latter was marginally the more reserved of the two, but they were both everything that their opposite men weren’t: they broke opportunistically and drove purposefully with the ball and they took responsibility for each other’s actions (when one pressed forward, the other covered). It was simple but effective, and it provided a stark contrast to the ad libbed chaos within City’s midfield.
 
In any other side Danny Drinkwater would be the story of the season, so it’s symptomatic of N’Golo Kante’s influence that he’s been relegated to the supporting cast. It’s reductive to talk of the twenty-four year-old in athletic terms, but it’s absolutely necessary: he’s a physical marvel and the ground he covers in games is quite staggering. That might not be so obvious on television, but in the flesh his contribution is more vivid and flirts with the boundaries of possibility.
 
A football player should not be able to sustain that level of intensity for as long as he does.
 
On Saturday, he was metronomic and essentially provided the kind of contribution that would be expected from two or three players. He made clearances in his own box, interceptions deep in his half, and yet – still – managed to be influential on the other side of the halfway line. It was fitting, then, that goals two and three bore his fingerprints. His surge into the City half – and beyond Fernandino’s meek challenge – created the space for Riyad Mahrez to flummox Martin Demichelis and rip his shot beyond Joe Hart. And, in the build-up to the corner from which Robert Huth’s header secured the game, it was Kante who prevented Sergio Aguero from making a clearance and he who started the passage of play (Vardy’s slaloming run, Okazaki’s blocked flick) which kept the hosts pinned in their half.
 
And that’s really why his semi-unique blend of attributes is worthy of more recognition: it’s one thing to have the energy and drive to bounce from one end of the pitch to the other, but it’s something else entirely for a player to be technically equipped to be an equal asset with and without the ball. Kante took players on, he saw passes that a less cerebral midfielder wouldn’t and he was a constant source of well-directed excellence.
 
We know that football teams are typically split into two halves – an attack and a defence – and we understand that there are players who sit on the dividing line and contribute on either side. N’Golo Kante is currently the best example of that kind of player in England and the range which he brings to his role – and his ability to out-run and out-perform his opposite men in other teams – is one of the principal reasons why Leicester City are where they are.
 
It was certainly why they were able to win at the weekend and how they were able to look so dominant in doing so.
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Fox Ulike

Fox Ulike

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Posted (edited)

But this isn't a typical season by virtue of the fact we have taken 53 points, including taking plenty of points off the big boys.

 

So was it a typical season last season?

 

I don't remember too many people saying how 'lucky' Chelsea were to win it last season - even though that have faced a very similar level of opposition to that which we have faced this season.

 

Liverpool Man United, Arsenal and Man City are almost exactly in the same positions that they were last season.

 

Were Chelsea lucky that man united were in transition, and that Liverpool under-achieved? Seemingly not, although apparently Leicester are fortunate!

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So was it a typical season last season?

 

I don't remember too many people saying how 'lucky' Chelsea were to win it last season - even though that have faced a very similar level of opposition to that which we have faced this season.

 

Liverpool Man United, Arsenal and Man City are almost exactly in the same positions that they were last season.

 

Were Chelsea lucky that man united were in transition, and that Liverpool under-achieved? Seemingly not, although apparently Leicester are fortunate!

 

It was a typical season in that it was the usual suspects filling the top 4, but there were some glimpses of what was to come from West Ham and Southampton, with United looking very average at  times, and Man City and Arsenal looking vulnerable when teams didn't just park the bus.

 

This season hasn't been a typical season because the team that were bottom this time last year are now top, as a result there are 5 teams all battling for the title it isn't a typical season because we are top, we are not top because it isn't a typical season.

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