The most unlikely of champions was Leicester city in the premier league last season. So of course they came in with great expectations but fell flat. What happened? No player changes no major coaching changes. Was it just pure luck the silverware they gained last year fell to them?
In one of Charles Dickens classics Great Expectations a book forced upon me in the 8th grade the main character, pip, is suddenly placed with a great deal of money from a sponsor and expected to go to London to learn to be a gentleman. In many ways it is the same story of Leicster a team given everything including great expectations and as pip does in the book Leicester has failed those expectations. So how?
Perhaps the most glaring difference in the stats of the two vastly different same teams. In 15 Leicster scored 69 goals meanwhile this season they have only scored only 44. Perhaps it was the bright lights that anointed Jamie Vardy as England’s next Wayne Rooney that caused him to stumble this year but the drop off has been severe.
That’s the strange part though only Leicsters goals scored severely dropped. Possession stayed about even (47 percent in 16 two better than the 45 percent in 15) same with pass accuracy (75 percent in 15 dropping only 4 percent to 71 in 16)
In almost every major statistical category the Foxes remained the same if not improving in some areas. So a season that now brings them frighteningly close to relegation has been all based on luck? I find that hard to believe which is why I provide the Great Expectations theory. Leicster came into the year with too much hype too much riding on their backs. They were simply handed riches so quickly in such an unlikely way it drove them to assume to be overconfident and fall to their lowest of lows. Dickens is not a sports fans companion in any way shape or form but he certainly wrote Leicsters demise.