Claudio Ranieri and Leicester City’s fairy tale ended on a sour note – we examine the factors which impacted Claudio’s exit from Leicester City.
Leicester City’s title triumph was by all terms the weirdest thing to have happened in football in recent years. The very fact that bookmakers were prepared to be more optimistic about an alien ship landing in the UK or Elvis Presley returning back from the dead gives us some idea about the magnitude of the shock waves the Foxes sent rippling through the football world with their feat. Winning the league with a lead of 10 points, Leicester City and Claudio Ranieri did the impossible. Nevertheless, this season has been an absolute nightmare for Ranieri’s men considering the amount of money they spent in the summer. Given their performances and effectiveness of last season, it would seem difficult for a football fan to come to terms with the present scenario. The Foxes are now still battling relegation having lost their last 5 games in the league failing to score a single goal before sacking Ranieri. In this article I have tried to identify the reasons behind the team’s incredible collapse of this season trying to analyse the situation from a different perspective.
The Beginning Of The Incredible Run For Claudio Ranieri’s Foxes
While last season was the one that remains deeply ingrained in the memory of the supporters at the King Power, the actual turn of fortune for the Foxes happened at the business end of the 2014/15 season. Nigel Pearson was the manager of the team then which was rock bottom of the league, nailed on favourites to drop down into the Championship for the next season. While the Premier League itself has witnessed its fair share of miraculous escapes pulled off by the teams at the bottom over the years, to contemplate something similar for Leicester seemed like a little too much for even the most loyal supporter. The statistics further consolidated the general feeling when it was revealed Leicester has had the worst run of any team in the top flight for the season when they were winless for 13 games and the longest they have gone without conceding a goal in the season so far was only 173 minutes. In other words, the opposition was bound to score against the Foxes. Kasper Schmeichel kept just 4 clean sheets in the first 27 games as the defence was left exposed far too often.
Then, it happened. Six wins from seven games and a goalless draw against Sunderland in the final game of the season ensured the greatest escape in Premier League history. 19 points from the last 24 with Kasper Schmeichel keeping five clean sheets in the last 6 games reflected the defensive turnaround which fuelled the incredible run. It was the beginning of what eventually turned out to be another incredible feat, this time not saving the relegation but winning the Premier league title in the 2015/16.