Leicester City: Road to BPL Champions

At 7:30pm on Saturday 7th May Leicester City completed the impossible by lifting the Premier League Trophy after a 3-1 win against Everton. It’s now time to look at their long road to glory from the lows of previous season to the amazing highs of this campaign.

In the 2007/08 season Leicester were relegated from the Championship for the first time ever. However, Nigel Pearson secured the League 1 title the following season with a team that included a young Tom Cleverly, Chris Powell (former manager of Charlton), and Matty Fryatt who scored 32 goals that season.

The 2009/10 season was extremely impressive seeing as the Foxes had just been promoted. However, despite finishing in the play-offs, they lost on penalties to Cardiff in the semi-final.

The 2010/11 season saw a horrific start by the Foxes which led to Nigel Pearson being sacked. They recovered their form though and finished a respectable 10th. This season was the first Andy King made his mark with 13 goals to his name (more on him later). The following season saw Nigel Pearson return to the hot seat with another mid table finish.

The first half of the 2012/13 season saw Leicester go on a very good run and they sat 2nd at the start of February. However, a downward spiral saw them fall out of the play offs until the last minute of the last game when Antonhy Knockaert scored a dramatic late winner to put the Foxes in the play offs. He then went from hero to zero very quickly. With the play off semi-final 2-2 on aggregate Leicester were awarded a penalty. Knockaert took it but Almunia (the Watford keeper) saved it to stop Leicester going through. A few seconds later down the other end Deeney scored to put Watford through. One of the most bizarre minutes ever! In 2013/14 Leicester didn’t fancy the play off drama again, so they went and won the league with 31 wins and 102 points! Wes Morgan and Jamie Vardy also played a part in that season…

So the Premier League is tougher than they thought. In the 2014-15 season the Foxes good early form faded away leaving them marooned at the bottom during the festive season. However, a number of goals from (who else) Jamie Vardy and 7 wins in 9 games saw them finish 14th.

The players have had a bit of a journey as well, from Fleetwood to  England and Leicester to… Leicester?

On April 12th 2013 Jamie Vardy played out his last few minutes as a non league player against Luton Town. His £1 million move to Leicester City was imminent and Vardy was obviously too good for this level. Now he is joint top scorer in the Premier League, with a BPL medal round his neck. Interestingly, his opposite number that day was a certain Andre Gray. The Englishman has just been promoted to the Premier League with Burnley as the top scorer after a big money move from non league. De ja vu anyone?

Andy King has played for Leicester City since 2004. He is their all time top scorer for a midfielder. Also he has the title with them in League 1, Championship and the Premier League making him the first player to do that with one club in the Premier League era.

Claudio Raneri suffered his worst ever day as manager when Greece lost 2-1 to the Faroe Islands. He only went and won the league with Leicester City a year and a half later. The best zero to hero ever?

3 thoughts on “Leicester City: Road to BPL Champions”

      1. A good review Alex, although I disagree with you about next season, I feel that the distraction and extra games from the Champions League will prove difficult as they come to terms with the extra workload. Also this season every player has hit form at the same time and they have not suffered from many injuries or suspensions. I’d be very happy to see them get past the cl group stages and think they will start well but fade off as form/ number of games etc take their toll. I’d expect them to be closer to the drop than the top next season.

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