Leicester City’s remarkable Premier League
triumph is starting to set in after the club, which won the first
championship in its history last week, got their hands on the trophy at their King Power Stadium on Saturday.
Already, though, attention is turning to next season and whether their
success represents a fairytale anomaly or if they, or another underdog,
can upset the pecking order once again.
The biggest test for Leicester, under the
charge of their genial Italian coach Claudio Ranieri, will be to retain
the team spirit that has played such a fundamental role in their
triumph, while adjusting to the demands of the Champions League and
their greater wealth and pulling power. Ranieri received
overachieving seasons from the likes of Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, Wes
Morgan, Robert Huth, Marc Albrighton, and Danny Drinkwater, and somehow
made all the pieces fit on squad fated for relegation before the season
opener.
Speaking to International Business Times last
week, the wife of Leicester’s Austrian left-back Christian Fuchs, Raluca
Gold-Fuchs, who lives in New York City and previously worked for Goldman Sachs, revealed the extent of the bond between everyone at the East Midlands’ club.
“It’s been an amazing season,” she said. “The
team spirit and the people that work for the team are all a great group
of people with some really nice personalities. So they’re more like a
family than a business, if I have to compare it.”
Ahead of Leicester lifting the Premier League
trophy, Ranieri stressed, too, that their transfer policy wouldn’t be
about signing the biggest star players, but getting those who can fit
into the team ethos.
Famously given odds of 5,000-1 to win the
title at the start of this season, the bookmakers are not making the
same mistake for the next campaign. Still, rated at about 25-1 they are
only seen as seventh favorites to retain their crown. What has made
Leicester’s story this season so compelling is how rare it is. Neither
they nor any other club is likely to replicate it for some time.
Yet the possibility exists that Leicester’s
upsetting of the Premier League’s traditional big hitters could inspire
both them and other clubs outside of the elite to do likewise next
season. Here are some of the potential candidates to follow Leicester’s
lead.
Bournemouth
One
of the few ways that Leicester City’s triumph could be topped next
season would be if Bournemouth were to lift the title. Based in the tiny
11,000-capacity Dean Court on England’s south coast, Bournemouth are
currently completing their first ever season in the top flight. If it
were not for Ranieri’s heroics at Leicester, then a strong case could be
made that Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe has pulled off the greatest
managerial achievement in this season’s Premier League. Despite being
heavily tipped to go straight back down to the Championship, the
Cherries secured their Premier League status with several games to
spare.
Retaining their commitment to an attractive,
possession-based style, Bournemouth have proved they can mix it up with
the Premier League’s elite, beating Chelsea and Manchester United in
back-to-back matches last December. Given that for much of the season
they have been without their two big signings from last summer and their
lead striker, they may hope to go even better next season. Yet manager
Eddie Howe is keen to avoid supporters getting carried away by
Leicester’s achievement.
“I would urge real caution when people bring up the story of Leicester,” he told the Bournemouth Echo last week. “We are not Leicester.
“I think it has been incredible what Leicester
have done and an amazing achievement. But I think it is very rare that
it will happen in football and we need to remember our journey.”
Burnley
While
Leicester’s story was remarkable, it wasn’t quite the equivalent of a
feat only ever managed by Tottenham, Ipswich Town and Nottingham Forest
in winning the top division the very next season after being promoted.
Could Championship winners Burnley become the first team since Forest in 1978 to do just that?
The bookmakers certainly don’t think so,
already placing their odds at 1,000-1. The Lancashire club do, though,
have the experience of playing in the Premier League, having come up and
then gone straight back down last season, and should be stronger for
the experience this time around.
And, like Leicester, they also boast a squad
of unheralded players, whose success has been in large part due to a
unified spirit among the squad.
“It took a bit of time when I got here to get
it how I wanted it and to get the environment and the culture that I
think is appropriate for footballers to work and to grow and improve too
here,” manager Sean Dyche said.
“It’s the key core values which people talk of as being old fashioned
now; pride, passion, will to work, dedication- they all go into the
melting pot.”
Burnley have also been English league
champions twice before, in 1921 and 1960, but to do so again would
eclipse even Leicester City’s fairytale.
West Ham United
Nobody
would suggest that West Ham landing the Premier League title would be
quite on the same scale as Leicester. The London side after all are a
far more established member of England’s top flight. However, it would
be a remarkable feat nonetheless given they have never finished higher
than third and have never cracked the top four in the Premier League
era. Yet there is reason to think that they could crack that ceiling, if
not next year, then in the foreseeable future.
Not only will they fall just short of reaching
the Champions League this season, but Tuesday’s match with Manchester
United will be the last match at Upton Park before West Ham move into
the 60,000-capacity Olympic Stadium. The new stadium will vastly
increase their revenue-earning potential, but that have been handed the
keys to it on a 99-year agreement that has been deemed the “deal of the
century.”
Indeed, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has
described inheriting the stadium as like “winning the lottery.” Already
boasting the talent of Dimitri Payet, big money could be spent this
summer, with a bid of £25 million having already been made for a striker
in France. It will surely be enough to tempt many to take up bookmakers
on their odds of 80-1 on West Ham to win the title next season.
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