Team Focus: Leicester Pulling Clear at the top of the Championship
“The Championship is the most unpredictable league in Europe.”
It is a line often spun out to promote the league, with plenty of merit, but Leicester City’s charge to the top has led to the usual script, in the race for first place at least, being torn apart. The Foxes possess an unflinching disdain for that ‘anything can happen in this league’ theory at the moment.
Ten points clear, with two fewer than their final total of 68 points last season already amassed with 17 games still to play, a failure to return to the Premier League, which they departed a decade ago, would require a capitulation of remarkable proportions.
The last 10 years have been difficult, not least their year in League One, but under Nigel Pearson, who is in his second spell at the club after bringing them out of the third tier in his initial period with the highest win percentage of any of the club’s managers (51.4%), they have been unstoppable this season. And, even at this point, it is not premature to suggest that they are on the brink of a long-awaited return to the top table.
They have won nine on the bounce and, frighteningly for the chasing pack, just one of their next nine games is against a team in the hunt for automatic promotion. A visit to Nottingham Forest awaits on Saturday week, but considering Leicester’s lead and Forest’s need to keep up the pressure on Burnley, QPR and Derby County, most of the pressure will be on the home team.
Apart from that, Leicester will play relegation-threatened Charlton, Barnsley and Yeovil, along with Blackpool, who are in freefall. It is conceivable that by the time they head to Burnley at the end of March, they will be out of sight.
But what has been the secret to their success? Delving into the data, it is apparent there is no magic formula. Indeed their gameplan is quite simplistic, without intending to sound even slightly disparaging.
Their structure and organisation has been their biggest strength. There is no outstanding individual, just plenty of strong performers, with an ideal mixture of fearless youngsters and wise elder statesmen. Pearson has favoured a straightforward 4-4-2 in 23 of their games and, unless injury or suspension dictates otherwise, likes to stick with the same team. Such consistency has been crucial.
They don’t command particularly high levels of possession – with an average of 52.3% per game – but they like to spread the ball to the flanks with short incisive passing. Of their attacking moves, 76% come from out wide, while 79% of their passes are short, with only 68 long balls played per game.
But their chance creation tally is most impressive, with a plethora of players capable of both creating and finishing. They have the highest shots per game average in the division (16.7) but, strikingly, their top scorer David Nugent, with 15 goals, only ranks eighth in the league's overall shots per game standings with 3.3. Nugent also leads the team's assists table with 9, but is tied fourth in the division.
There is such a spread of match-winners in the squad that even if Nugent was to have an off-day - which he hasn't had too many of - someone else will step up to the plate. Jamie Vardy and the two regular wingers, Anthony Knockaert and Lloyd Dyer, have combined for another 20 goals between them.
Only Derby County have scored more, and the Rams were outclassed from start to finish in the 4-1 game at the King Power in early January. Derby went into that game after an impressive run of their own but the manner in which Leicester went about picking them off was, arguably, the Foxes' biggest statement of intent.
They have won their four games since, conceding only a single goal in the process, away to Birmingham. There could be a few surprises along the road, of course, but even the omens look good.
They were quiet in the transfer window (there is no point tinkering with something that works seamlessly) but signing Kevin Phillips on a free has already proven to be a great piece of business. He has been promoted from this division with Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion, Birmingham City and Crystal Palace previously.
Despite struggling to last 90 minutes these days (he is 40 after all), he knows how to get out of this division like no other and, as shown with his winning goal against Bournemouth last weekend, his role as an impact player off the bench is a major benefit - never mind in the dressing room.
Will Leicester win the Championship comfortably or can you see their season being derailed? Let us know in the comments below
