Leicester win the league

After Spurs went 2-0 up at Stamford Bridge tonight, Chelsea came back to level things at 2-2 and not only deny Spurs their three points, but their last chance to stay in the title race, which means Leicester have now won the league without having to kick another ball.

And well done to them, they've earned it. 

Well done Leicester An amazing achievement 
Very happy the Spuds fell apart They were an absolute disgrace tonight - 9 bookings & some atrocious fouls 
Think there'll be some heavy fines and retrospective bans coming their way Tossers !!

Dier should have been 2nd yellowed at the end, but due to another foul Clattenberg forgot about it. The Spuds frustration boiled over and how they ended the game with 11 men was more luck than judgement.

Anyway, well done to Leicester, enjoy the moment. To have only lost 3 games all season is testament to their team, a hard working team, that fights for everything together. Whether they've took advantage of the "big" teams under-performed this season is irrelevant, they've earned the title themselves...so i say, well done Leicester

Didn't see the bad tackles in the 2nd half, thought Spurs had it in the bag at HT. Saw the eye gouge which should be retrospectively banned.

Fair play to the Foxes, be interesting to see how they fair against the flat back 10 they will face next season.   But a massive wake up call to all the so called "big" teams.

Next season is going to be so interesting for us.  I think Pep is actually going to have to work hard for his money.

blisteringblue wrote:Fair play to the Foxes, be interesting to see how they fair against the flat back 10 they will face next season.   But a massive wake up call to all the so called "big" teams.

Absolutely!  Not one of the so called "big" teams could do anything to stop them this season.

What Leicester have done this season is something that I've mentioned on occasion in the past: It's not who you buy, but what you do with them once you have them.  I've never been a massive fan of the "Buy all Galacticos" method as it's not helped any club in the PL to anything really sustainable.  Look at us.  Look at Chelsea.  Look at what the rags are doing right now.  Look at QPR, for god's sake!  It's not really served Madrid all that well as they still struggle to overcome Barca and Athleti.  Monaco and Anzhi Macarena haven't done all that well out of it either.  Granted, PSG have shown that money can buy repeated success in the league, but then they're hardly up against any serious quality in the French league and they're really not ripping up trees in Europe - I mean, WE beat them and we've been crap!

I suspect Leicester will struggle next season, not just from any other teams parking the bus, but from the added pressure of the CL and the weight of expectation.

No one took Leicester seriously at all. Even in the last knockings of the season, teams thought they could beat them. Leicester were happy to let teams have possession and hot them on the break. That's petty much opposite to what happens to City.

Just shows you what team spirit, hard work and some skill can do.

Topdawg wrote:Just shows you what team spirit, hard work and some skill can do.

Exactly.  Their entire team cost a Raheem Sterling.  It's not hard to see who the mugs were there!

Well done Leicester City players, Ranieri and their fans.

Listening to them being interviewed brings back memories of when we won the title 93:20. The emotion, the relief in their voices can be heard - so I guess us, more than most clubs in the modern era, know what they are feeling today.

They started out winning games by outscoring teams after going behind - sound like someone? Then, when the reality started hitting home, those 3-2 wins changed to 1-0 hard fought results - again, similarities to our 1st PL title (albeit the last game)...they've pretty much done everything perfectly. Ranieri kept their feet on the ground, celebrating 40 points and staying in the PL. Whilst leading, he then celebrated getting CL football for next season...all the while, still keeping calm about their title prospects.

It's an incredible achievement - and has been great for the PL.

As for next season? With £140m in the bag - and if they keep 3/4 of their key players and sign 2/3 more decent, team-orientated players, who knows, a CL spot may be achieveable - but playing CL football, cup matches and PL games takes it's toll on teams...but enjoy the ride!

I expect them to have a slightly bigger squad than this year. They have tons of money in the bank from this and they'll get £30M-£40M minimum from the CL next season. It'll be much more difficult for them to pick up bargains now.

Great read by Martin Samuel.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3570126/Leicester-City-gave-love-football-Faith-idealism-optimism-romance.html

Some sound-bites:

It is hard to put Leicester’s triumph into context because so little can be compared. Mark Steel, the comedian, said he was trying to explain it to friends who did not follow football and was moved to increasingly bizarre analogies. ‘It’s like winning the Grand National,’ he finally announced, exhausted, ‘on a cat.’

Alternatively, try this one. Leicester City were 5,000-1 to do this at the start of the season. That means if the Premier League continued every year from now until 7016, by the bookmakers’ estimation, Leicester would win it, once. Equally, had the Premier League started in 2984 BC, or around the time Stonehenge was built, and been played every year since, the bookmakers believe Leicester would win it, once.

Roughly two miles away from the King Power Stadium is Fayrhurst Road, where the playwright Joe Orton was born. Wild and anarchic in his writing, yet authentically working-class in his upbringing. ‘Somebody from nowhere,’ John Lahr called him, in a superb biography.

It seems rather apt for Leicester, too. A success from nowhere, by nobodies who become somebodies. Vardy may have a film made of his story, but his is not the only Hollywood ending. Morgan, the captain, ditched by Notts County for being too fat; Riyad Mahrez, from failed trialist at St Mirren to Players’ Player of the Year.

Claudio Ranieri, the coach, the nearly man, the Tinkerman, sacked by Greece for losing to the Faroe Islands. And then this, an unprecedented feat of man-management, somehow warding off the inevitable collapse, somehow convincing a group of second-class footballers that they were first-rate, that they not only deserved this success but that it could be sustained over weeks, then months — a calendar year, in fact, if we include the end of last season when Leicester’s revival began, avoiding relegation from another impossible position, under Nigel Pearson.

Greaves, it was said, played as if in slow motion while all around him were frantic. Vardy is the opposite, a player on fast forward, while his opponents freeze.

‘Seventy per cent of the planet is covered by water, the rest is covered by N’Golo Kante,’

I wonder where we would have been in 2007 /8 if we had got Ranieri in. Because of the drawnout selling of the club & shinnawatra taken an eternity over due diligence we lost Ranieri to a then 2nd division Juventus. He was, if the press were to be believed 1st choice for City Manager. He had until the 1st of June before he gave his answer to Juve. Hence we ended up with Sven.

I doubt it would've made much difference to be honest.  We started off well, but then Frank had his assets frozen and we ended up getting battered 8-1 by Middlesbrough.  I suspect it would've panned out much the same, except maybe Michael Johnson would've got even fatter on all the pizza