Given that Leicester City’s title-winning success in 2015/16 was so astoundingly unlikely, it feels like safe ground to claim that such an event will never happen again.
After all, it was viewed at the time, and has been viewed ever since, as a once-in-a-lifetime fairy-tale. A glitch in the matrix.
Famously, the Foxes’ Premier League odds before a ball had been kicked was 5000/1 to ultimately lift the crown, and when making sense of that price we’re in the realms of Elvis returning from the dead to star in Coronation Street. Or Micah Richards saying something genuinely insightful.
It was an achievement, propelled in part by the prolific scoring of Jamie Vardy, that by all conventional logic should not have occurred and therefore it’s hardly a hot-take to suggest it will not – and depressingly, cannot - be repeated.
Yet it’s not the definitive naysaying of another miracle that is the story here, but rather the reasons why, with football changing so much even in the short period since their remarkable triumph.
The first – and most persuasive - of these reasons does not actually concern the Foxes at all, but instead the collective dropping off that season of the usual suspects, with each of the traditional ‘top six’ struggling to varying degrees.
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This will very likely not happen again, largely because the six in question have ensured that it won’t, transforming themselves from super clubs into superclubs by packing their squads to the brim with elite fare.
That campaign, a pre-Guardiola Manchester City just pipped their arch-rivals United to a top four spot on goal difference, with Liverpool nowhere to be seen.
Chelsea, meanwhile, reigning champions but collapsing terribly under the strain of Jose Mourinho’s final days at the Bridge, were even more anonymous, eventually languishing in mid-table.
Indeed, the only semblance of a fight that Leicester faced was from the North London pair of Spurs and Arsenal whose respective 71 and 70 points were not only miles adrift of the Midlands side, but hopelessly short of their typical tallies.
It was the worst return for the Gunners for five full years. Spurs, the following season, accrued 16 more points.
If this intimates that Leicester were fortunate during that unforgettable campaign that is not the intention. More accurately, their success was succinctly of its time.
That’s because in the seasons since, City have won the title four times, averaging 94.2 points in the process.
Liverpool’s league crown was attained via 99 points, while Chelsea amassed 93 in 2017, and throughout this monolithic era, Leicester’s 81 points would have secured a runner-up spot just the once. As stated, these are now superclubs.
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Moreover, finances are now a major factor.
In 2016, Financial Fair Play was still in its relative infancy, but now in full flight it prevents huge investment being ploughed into a Brighton or Brentford; a Fulham or Aston Villa.
Even Newcastle, by some distance the richest club in the world are reined in on their spending due to strict regulations, and this guarantees the pinnacle of English football remains a closed shop.
It is not accidental that it cannot be bought, nor can a brilliantly put-together side compete across a long and demanding season. Not against the aforementioned super-squads.
Presently, Leicester are 7/2 in the Premier League relegation betting. They feel an awfully long way from pulling off another miracle.
And it will take an awfully long time before anyone else gets close.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
FIRST PUBLISHED: 17th January 2023
