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Survival against the odds, but where next for Leicester? — Opposition profile

Leicester’s miraculous escape from relegation sets them up to join the Premier League’s 42-point brigade. But how did they do it, and what reward is that for their endeavours?

For so long it looked as though Leicester City would be joining QPR and Burnley in making an immediate return to the Championship.

All three promoted sides will go straight back down more often than not if the respective positions of the two leagues on football finance — the Premier League want to give you more money than you could ever possibly need to spend on shiny things, the Championship think anybody trying to better themselves and upset the traditional order of things is evil and to be punished — stays the same. A gap is becoming a chasm.

Leicester looked the best set of the three promoted sides to stay up. They had the stadium, the training ground, the support base, the facilities, the ethos, the stability and the long term plan — some of which is lacking at Burnley and all of which is absent at QPR. The Foxes ran away with the second tier last season and stood the best chance, said the received wisdom during the summer and indeed into the season proper as points were quickly taken from Everton and Arsenal and wins secured at Stoke and in one riotously exciting bloodbath against Louis Van Gaal's fledgling Man Utd outfit.

Leonardo Ulloa, a gangly 28-year old who'd looked alright at Brighton, and nothing more, was scoring regularly. Such a player, you can be sure, would have come to QPR and failed. All that stuff about solidity and ethos and long term planning and facilities and infrastructure that we bang on about on LFW so much the type-face has worn off the keys does count for something see? There go Leicester, off into the distance, while we kick around down here, with our Ji-Sung Park t-shirts.

And then the arse fell out of it all. Whether Leicester became complacent after the Man Utd result, whether they thought they could run before they could walk, whether the early results was simply momentum continuing from winning the title and it was all to wear off during the long hard winter — whatever the reason they couldn't buy a win for months on end. A 13 match run without a victory took them through the autumn — early in that run they led Burnley 2-1 at home but tried to sit and defend the lead, shipping an equaliser in the sixth minute of injury time. It dented confidence, first and foremost, but it was also a change in style from Nigel Pearson, who'd previously had his team on the front foot at all times. Were they scared? Were they intimidated? Had they compromised their style? They lost ten of their next 11 and drew the other one.

There was a cough around Christmas — four wins, including two in the FA Cup — but they immediately set off on another run of eight Premier League games with no win. Now firmly bottom of the table, they'd won only two of 24 Premier League matches — two thirds of their season. Pub chat among supporters of the other sides kicking around with the deadmen always started with "Well Leicester are down so…."

All of this seemed to rather get to manager Nigel Pearson. A guy who'd previously been recognised as a manager with a very decent record but not someone you'd want to get sat next to at a wedding reception lest you turn into the man in the turban on Airplane who'd rather set himself alight than listen to any more of the monotonous conversation, suddenly turned into the weirdo at the end of the road who the local kids are warned to steer clear of and about whom all manner of local legends and horror stories circle. He fought off a pack of dogs while on holiday in Romania, we were told. With his bare hands. Who holidays in Romania?

The fury manifested itself first with the supporters — one was told to "fuck off and die" for voicing criticism during a home match with Liverpool. Then there was the odd incident with James McArthur, who'd turned down Leicester to sign for Crystal Palace last summer and accidentally knocked Pearson over after losing his balance in a tackle close to the touchline. Pearson held him to the ground by the throat, laughing in that way where you're not sure he's really laughing. At one stage it looked like he might scalp McArthur, and feast on the goo within. The incident, and his explanation of it afterwards, was unsettling. If you were Pearson's cat, you'd have been quietly making plans to seek alternative accommodation.

Then his continued discomfort with the media turning up once a week and having the front to ask the searching questions the do — "any team news Nigel? Any news on Jamie Vardy's hamstring? Will you be watching the Ryder Cup?" — which had previously seen him ban local radio reporters from Leicester games exploded into attacks on all and sundry. There was another bizarre exchange that included the line: "Are you an ostrich? Are you? Are you flexible enough to be an ostrich? I am. Are you?"

It looked like the standard mental unravelling of a manager previously unused to the scrutiny of the Premier League off the field and quality of player on it. Leicester would go down, Pearson would be sacked, that's how it would be. In fact Pearson was sacked, by one member of the club's Thai board, only to then be reinstated several hours later by another, making Sky Sports News and their "me, me, me, we were first" culture of "too good to check" news reporting look utterly fucking ridiculous in the process. Stick to telling us what James Beattie thinks of it all on Twitter lads #pickoftheday.

But salvation lay in the spring. As discussed last week pre-Newcastle, the aim of the Premier League for the majority of teams in it is to get the season finished as quickly as possible. Get to 42 points, get out of the cups at the first possible opportunity in case they inhibit you getting to 42 points, don't go much further than 42 points in case you end up in the Europa League and that's the job done. Basically, the Premier League ideal for the majority of teams in it is to have a dozen games from the beginning of March onwards that mean absolutely nothing. Endless dead rubbers between Swansea and West Brom, built up by Sky into Tony Pulis' big return to the homeland, are what we want.

Leicester happened across a number of the teams who'd been successful in this aim, just as they were all clocking off and thinking about a summer on the Costa Del British Footballer. West Ham, West Brom, Swansea and Southampton would all have been extremely difficult games before Christmas — in fact the Foxes lost to all four of them before the festivities without scoring a single goal. But West Ham have been on Big Fat Sam's Big Fat Farewell Tour for sometime now, West Brom had been lifted safe by Pulis, and Swansea and Southampton were both locked in the race to avoid the Europa League.

Four wins were quickly procured and once you'd thrown in the obligatory three points that Newcastle have been generously handing out for the last three months, even to teams as rancid as QPR, and another three at relegation rivals Burnley, who missed a crucial penalty, and Leicester were safe. Suddenly they're talking about Nigel Pearson being the manager of the year.

There's always a team that performs a dramatic escape like this — Wigan repeatedly, Sunderland last year — and in Leicester's case it's through a combination of not being as bad as their results suggested and pure luck. The Manchester United performance, and the displays of players like Jamie Vardy, Esteban Cambiasso, Kasper Schmeichel and Matty James, plus the canny mid-season acquisition of Robert Huth suggested that last place was a false position despite them holding it for so long.

But they needed the bad luck which had seem them concede late, late goals against Burnley, Everton, Villa and Spurs to turn and it did in the form of the fixture list. Now it is they who stand a chance of consolidating in the 42 point brigade.

Links >>> Offcial Website >>> Fox Blogger >>> Leicester Till I Die — blog >>> The Fox Fanzine >>> Leicester Mercury local paper >>> Foxes Talk forum >>> Bentley’s Roof message board

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

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