Sometimes events happen that no one could predict. An example of this is the 2015-2016 season of the Premier League, where Leicester City became champions. They managed to shake the world by this: the odds of this happening were 5000-to-1 at the start of the season. There are a couple of factors that played a role in Leicester’s success this season. In this blog, we’ll talk about this more.
Claudio Ranieri
When Claudio Ranieri got appointed as the Leicester City manager in 2015, many people immediately wrote him off. He had had his periods of success, but his best runs were long gone. Robert Huth, Leicester’s captain at the time, quite openly mentioned not being very happy with this appointment either. However, Ranieri managed to turn the ship around. Leicester success started from the moment Ranieri got appointed: they managed to escape relegation – something that many deemed impossible.
The right transfers
Another big factor in Leicester’s success were the two signings they made: Riyad Mahrez in 2014 and N’GoloKanté in 2015 were brought in from the Ligue 1. The world back then didn’t know the amazing qualities these players had to offer, but they soon started to show this. By bringing these two into a squad, Ranieri managed to build a system that just seemed to work. The already experienced Jamie Vardy linked up well with Mahrez, bringing a lot of danger at the front. At the back everything seemed to fall together as well: Kanté did his job as a box-to-box midfielder, stopping attacks from his opponents and starting them for his own team. The experience of Huth, Morgan and Fuchs at the back were the foundation of Leicester’s success: everything seemed to fall together at the right time.
Weak opposition
We don’t want to take anything away from Leicester’s performance, however, it can’t go unnoticed that most of the big teams seemed to have an off-season too. The main competitors for Leicester were Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur: two teams that weren’t exactly known for winning a lot of titles at the time. The best example of a top team underperforming is Chelsea: the Premier League title defenders at the time finished 10th the season after. Manchester City finished 4th and Manchester 5th and never really gave Leicester any competition for the title either. However, this weak opposition doesn’t take anything away from Leicester’s performance, as they only had three losses through the entire season as well.
More interesting Premier League statistics
Are you interested in more Premier League statistics like this? We suggest checking out one of the applications run by a
Premier League API by Sportmonks. Sportmonks support applications with a great database of information, so you’ll be able to find even more interesting statistics about this incredible 2015/16 season of Leicester City, or many statistics from other seasons and other leagues.
