Premier League: Can Leicester City retain title in 2016-17?
Leicester City’s miracle Premier League win won’t be repeated in 2016-17, and the Foxes will struggle to even make the top four.
It seems a little unfair, and wrong, to be looking ahead to Leicester City’s tough task to replicate their stunning achievement this season, just a matter of days after they paraded on a bus with the title. The Foxes deserve time to celebrate this incredible accomplishment, just two years after earning promotion to the Premier League.
Yet it’s important for Leicester to begin to prepare for the tall order that comes with repeating their success. This year was the fairytale, next season is the reality.
No longer will the Foxes be regarded as the beloved underdogs, instead all 19 opponents they face will treat them as the Champions, and with that comes a very different gameplan. Early in the year, Leicester were being attacked by teams who saw them as nothing more than a team looking to avoid relegation.
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Rather than being able to sit back, absorb pressure and hit teams on the counter attack, Claudio Ranieri’s team will now run into teams adopting a defensive style themselves. Leicester will need to win on the front foot and avoid being picked off on the counter themselves.
Teams like Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur won’t treat them as underdogs, but rather as heavyweights.
The entire mentality of the club and the league changes. No longer are they the fearless Foxes who are shocking the world. Instead, they will be the reigning, defending champions having to play 38 games against teams desperate to knock off the champs. This in itself will pose a challenge Leicester rarely faced this year.
Before that comes the challenge of maintaining the core of the team together and adding necessary pieces. Leicester won the title with an outstanding team spirit, heart and belief. They were fortunate to exit domestic competitions early on, clearing their schedule for a one-game-a-week run-in.
Leicester’s squad will now need to get used to the tough physical and mental test of playing European soccer in midweek then backing it up at the weekend in the league. All of the country’s top teams have experience playing in either the Champions League or Europa League each week.
The Foxes’ squad needs to be deep enough to handle 90 tough minutes against Europe’s elite and then replicating the intensity at the weekend. If they advance to the knockout stages, two-legged contests against the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain will tax the team late in the year.
Keeping Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and the nucleus of this team together is the start. Adding the right pieces to the squad over the summer is the next test.
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Leicester can now never be written off. They entered the season as 5000/1 long-shots to win the league, but threw those odds back in the bookies’ faces with 10 points to spare. However replicating this success in England and Europe will be a tall order.
The focus has to be to finish in the top four, but competing with the ‘big boys’ will be tough.