Leicester City's rise illustrates weakness in the hearts of bigger clubs

A week is a long time in the beautiful game, and the last one or two have been some of the most remarkable in English football for what seems like a generation.

Chelsea, the reigning Premier League champions who seemingly rewrote all the rules when Roman Abramovich took over, parted company with Jose Mourinho for a second time after one of the most spectacular collapses in the history of modern football. The Blues have already lost as many games as they did in the previous two seasons and are languishing just above the relegation zone. Rarely has such a situation happened, not for a very long time in a game where a crushing dominance by elite clubs would have consigned this prospect beyond the realms of possibility. The support Mourinho receives from Chelsea fans, in contrast to the reception many of the players received, tells its own story, as much about the club as it does for so much of modern football.

The last time this happened in England was in the 1992-93 campaign, when the previous season’s champions Leeds United finished in 17th, after failing to win a single away game. In fairness, Leeds that season lost just once at home and only 10 points separated Liverpool in sixth place from Crystal Palace in 20th. League football is littered with scenarios where relatively little can separate those doomed to relegation from European places or promotion/play-off spots. For instance, in the 2012-13 Championship season, only 14 points separated Peterborough United in 22nd (whose 54 points was a record for a relegated side) from Leicester City in sixth. Yet the following season the Foxes blitzed the Championship with the same core squad and the same manager (Nigel Pearson).

Today, it is Leicester City, whose preseason aim was one of comfortable survival and consolidation, that has taken advantage of the big clubs’ stuttering form to sit atop the pile. Their story has all the ingredients of a fairytale – a provincial club, players that grab headlines (Jamie Vardy) and a team that shows no fear of any reputations. The 2-1 win over Chelsea sealed the fate of Mourinho and this comes with no lack of irony, as Leicester’s manager Claudio Ranieri can be credited for the foundations on which the Chelsea of Abramovich and Mourinho has been built. His appointment by Leicester was sound enough at the start, although they are a club who have taken considerable gambles to get to where they are.

For starters, the owners backed Nigel Pearson and his team in face of pressure following a slump in form during 2012-13, rewarded by winning the Championship at a canter. Last season looked pretty dismal for Leicester as recently as March, despite not playing particularly badly. The final nine games delivered a survival miracle before the last day of the season and a 14th placed finish, albeit made easier by the sheer incompetence of the teams that finished below them.

Despite having never won the League Championship, Leicester’s history has seen numerous high points – the 20s, the Matt Gillies years of the 60s, Jimmy Bloomfield during the 70s, Gordon Milne in the 80s and the Martin O’Neill-era of the 90s. With two League Cups won under O’Neill (they had previously won it in 1964), Leicester appeared to be an example of  a club being able to compete with less resources in a Premier League where money was an ever-increasing factor. Yet the Foxes also became one of the poster boys for financial problems in football, after the hard-earned legacy of those years was squandered by Peter Taylor (associated with the signing of Ade Akinbiyi) and Dave Bassett, followed by an inexorable decline that led to them dropping into League One for the first time ever in 2008.

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Will Leicester shock the world come May? Not only locally, but everyone else must surely now be alert to the very real possibility that the Foxes may not only be legitimate contenders for the Premier League crown, but also competitors in Europe next season. It is a throwback to the days when football, and not just in England, was a more open game despite the dominance of big city clubs. Recent years have shown signs that this gap can be bridged, not only with some spectacular FA Cup results, but also the successful establishment and consolidation of promoted clubs in the Premier League – such as Crystal Palace, Southampton, Stoke City, Swansea City and West Bromwich Albion. Most of these clubs have been soundly managed off the field, in stark contrast to the mess that some of the league’s current strugglers now find themselves in. This has been an era of seeming crushing dominance by the game’s ‘elite’ clubs not only in England, but in other major leagues including Spain, Italy and Germany. An era in which elite clubs and players seem more distant and disconnected from everyone else, most of all the fans, than ever before.

For this reason alone, Leicester’s current success is proving popular with football fans regardless of allegiances. The signs that the elite clubs of England may be overextending themselves, that some equilibrium can be restored and that the game’s so-called lesser lights can enjoy success in weaker periods for the bigger fish. What is happening at Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool to name a few is proving it to be the case. It is time for some introspection and for football to goback to what it should be. Could success for Leicester City by symbolic of something to that effect?