It is a title challenge like no other. It is a title challenge like the last.
Leicester City's surge toward the Premier League crown is rightly being celebrated because it is both utterly unexpected and unique. Never in the division's 24-year history has a team widely tipped for relegation threatened to top the table in May.
At a time when the same clubs have tended to dominate every year, the Foxes could become England's first new champions since Nottingham Forest in 1978. In an era when money has assumed a greater importance and the haves invariably prosper at the expense of the have-nots, Leicester acquired their top scorer and most creative players, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, for a combined total of £1.45 million. At a point when 4-4-2 had fallen out of fashion, Claudio Ranieri has revived the traditional English system.
So on the face of it, comparing them to Chelsea's Class of 2014-15 is absurd. They are as different as -- well, as Ranieri and Jose Mourinho; the amiable man smiling through every setback, and the serial winner with his conspiracy theories betraying hints of paranoia.
Chelsea featured a World Cup winner in Cesc Fabregas and eight Champions League finalists. Leicester's starting XI contains two uncapped Englishmen, a total that was higher before Danny Drinkwater took the field against the Netherlands on Tuesday.
Throughout this season, Chelsea fielded footballers who had cost them more than £300 million. Ranieri's preferred XI were acquired for just £22 million. Mourinho's two pivotal signings, Fabregas and Diego Costa, came from Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, respectively. Their Leicester counterparts, Mahrez and Vardy, were found in the French second division and non-league. Chelsea triumphed despite the burden of expectation and a packed programme that encompassed 54 competitive games. Leicester will play just 43 this season.
Yet there are certain similarities. It might be stretching it to brand it a title-winning formula, but there are common denominators. Both were the hardest team to beat in the division; Chelsea lost just three league games last season, while Leicester have been overcome only three times so far this term. That owed much to having the best defensive midfielder in the division, whether in Nemanja Matic or N'Golo Kante, and an old-fashioned centre-back in John Terry and Wes Morgan.
Leicester City's surge toward the Premier League crown is rightly being celebrated because it is both utterly unexpected and unique. Never in the division's 24-year history has a team widely tipped for relegation threatened to top the table in May.
At a time when the same clubs have tended to dominate every year, the Foxes could become England's first new champions since Nottingham Forest in 1978. In an era when money has assumed a greater importance and the haves invariably prosper at the expense of the have-nots, Leicester acquired their top scorer and most creative players, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, for a combined total of £1.45 million. At a point when 4-4-2 had fallen out of fashion, Claudio Ranieri has revived the traditional English system.
So on the face of it, comparing them to Chelsea's Class of 2014-15 is absurd. They are as different as -- well, as Ranieri and Jose Mourinho; the amiable man smiling through every setback, and the serial winner with his conspiracy theories betraying hints of paranoia.
Chelsea featured a World Cup winner in Cesc Fabregas and eight Champions League finalists. Leicester's starting XI contains two uncapped Englishmen, a total that was higher before Danny Drinkwater took the field against the Netherlands on Tuesday.
Throughout this season, Chelsea fielded footballers who had cost them more than £300 million. Ranieri's preferred XI were acquired for just £22 million. Mourinho's two pivotal signings, Fabregas and Diego Costa, came from Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, respectively. Their Leicester counterparts, Mahrez and Vardy, were found in the French second division and non-league. Chelsea triumphed despite the burden of expectation and a packed programme that encompassed 54 competitive games. Leicester will play just 43 this season.
Yet there are certain similarities. It might be stretching it to brand it a title-winning formula, but there are common denominators. Both were the hardest team to beat in the division; Chelsea lost just three league games last season, while Leicester have been overcome only three times so far this term. That owed much to having the best defensive midfielder in the division, whether in Nemanja Matic or N'Golo Kante, and an old-fashioned centre-back in John Terry and Wes Morgan.
Despite that defiance, their seasons began amid a flurry of goals. The temptation is to deem Mourinho a pragmatic master of efficient wins, but his side scored 15 goals in their first four games last season. Leicester struck 37 times in their first 17 matches of the current campaign. After those free-scoring starts, though, goals became rarities. Leicester have managed only 17 in their past 14 league games. Chelsea finished their campaign with 22 in 16.
Each can identify a turning point when they conceded five goals to opponents from North London. Chelsea's 5-3 defeat to Tottenham on New Year's Day 2015 convinced Mourinho to batten down the hatches. Leicester's 5-2 defeat to Arsenal in September prompted Ranieri to change his full-backs, bringing in Christian Fuchs and Danny Simpson for Jeffrey Schlupp and Ritchie de Laet. In both cases, the defensive record improved accordingly.
In each case, the first half of the season contained more high-scoring wins; thereafter, clean sheets assumed more of a significance. Leicester have nine in their past 13 games; after their White Hart Lane whipping, Chelsea kept eight in 14 matches. Their early prowess owed much to a prolific striker. Costa's first four games alone produced seven goals; Vardy set a divisional record by scoring in 11 consecutive matches.
Each can identify a turning point when they conceded five goals to opponents from North London. Chelsea's 5-3 defeat to Tottenham on New Year's Day 2015 convinced Mourinho to batten down the hatches. Leicester's 5-2 defeat to Arsenal in September prompted Ranieri to change his full-backs, bringing in Christian Fuchs and Danny Simpson for Jeffrey Schlupp and Ritchie de Laet. In both cases, the defensive record improved accordingly.
In each case, the first half of the season contained more high-scoring wins; thereafter, clean sheets assumed more of a significance. Leicester have nine in their past 13 games; after their White Hart Lane whipping, Chelsea kept eight in 14 matches. Their early prowess owed much to a prolific striker. Costa's first four games alone produced seven goals; Vardy set a divisional record by scoring in 11 consecutive matches.
Yet the pressure games in the second half tended to be determined by a wider cast of players. Each possessed men who displayed the character to contribute at key moments. In Leicester's past seven wins, the pivotal goal has been scored by Drinkwater, Vardy, Robert Huth, Leonardo Ulloa, Mahrez, Shinji Okazaki and Mahrez again. At a similar point, Chelsea's crucial goals were delivered by Oscar, Branislav Ivanovic, Willian, Eden Hazard, Loic Remy, Remy again and Fabregas.
Leicester had an 89th-minute winner, from Ulloa against Norwich. So did Chelsea, courtesy of Willian against Everton.
Ulloa and Remy underlined the difference a backup striker can have, while each had grounds to be grateful for the set-piece expertise of a goal-scoring defender. Ivanovic scored four times in six games in January and February 2015. Huth chipped in with three in five a year later -- which, as one was the goal at White Hart Lane and the other constituted a match-winning brace at Manchester City, were still more important.
Yet in each case, one inventive inverted winger ranked first among equals. In Chelsea's case, it was Hazard. For Leicester, it is Mahrez, his putative successor as footballer of the year.
Their preeminence came in part because they sustained their form when others -- whether Costa, Fabregas or Vardy -- suffered a slight dip. These products of Ligue 1 have proved their mettle when it matters. Mahrez's past nine league games, when Leicester have been a low-scoring team, have yielded three goals and four assists. Hazard had a spell in spring 2015 when he scored four times and created three more goals in seven league games; in that run, he contributed to 70 percent of Chelsea's goals.
The remarkable element is that the Algerian has already outstripped the Belgian. Hazard finished last season with 14 goals and nine assists in the Premier League. Mahrez's personal tallies stand at 16 and 11.
In other respects, too, Leicester have followed the Chelsea model but taken it to another level. Squad rotation may be de rigeur nowadays, but Mourinho represented an antidote to other managers by pursuing a policy of continuity. Chelsea had 11 players who made 28 or more appearances, eight of them recording at least 32. Leicester have nine who have featured in at least 29 of their 31 games.
At both clubs, plans were scarcely altered by January signings: Juan Cuadrado made only four starts for Chelsea, three more than Daniel Amartey and Demarai Gray have been granted between them for Leicester. Both managers identified their preferred players early in the campaign and stuck with them. Neither, despite the Italian's nickname, has proved a Tinkerman. They had the sense to stick with a winning formula.
These Blues have had a similar blueprint. Perhaps, galling as it must be for Mourinho to see his old enemy prosper in such startling fashion, he may deem imitation the sincerest form of flattery. The difference is that Leicester's component parts are so cheap and their progress so unexpected that their assault on the title feels a complete one-off. And yet the paradox is that it is both unique and familiar.
Their preeminence came in part because they sustained their form when others -- whether Costa, Fabregas or Vardy -- suffered a slight dip. These products of Ligue 1 have proved their mettle when it matters. Mahrez's past nine league games, when Leicester have been a low-scoring team, have yielded three goals and four assists. Hazard had a spell in spring 2015 when he scored four times and created three more goals in seven league games; in that run, he contributed to 70 percent of Chelsea's goals.
The remarkable element is that the Algerian has already outstripped the Belgian. Hazard finished last season with 14 goals and nine assists in the Premier League. Mahrez's personal tallies stand at 16 and 11.
In other respects, too, Leicester have followed the Chelsea model but taken it to another level. Squad rotation may be de rigeur nowadays, but Mourinho represented an antidote to other managers by pursuing a policy of continuity. Chelsea had 11 players who made 28 or more appearances, eight of them recording at least 32. Leicester have nine who have featured in at least 29 of their 31 games.
At both clubs, plans were scarcely altered by January signings: Juan Cuadrado made only four starts for Chelsea, three more than Daniel Amartey and Demarai Gray have been granted between them for Leicester. Both managers identified their preferred players early in the campaign and stuck with them. Neither, despite the Italian's nickname, has proved a Tinkerman. They had the sense to stick with a winning formula.
These Blues have had a similar blueprint. Perhaps, galling as it must be for Mourinho to see his old enemy prosper in such startling fashion, he may deem imitation the sincerest form of flattery. The difference is that Leicester's component parts are so cheap and their progress so unexpected that their assault on the title feels a complete one-off. And yet the paradox is that it is both unique and familiar.
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