Jamie Vardy Scores Yet Again v Newcastle United
The Premier League though exciting and thrilling is certainly not the best league in the world in-terms of quality, but we have to admit thrills and spills are aplenty and their marketing machine is still the best.
This season the league has thrown some shocks, it is the half-way mark and teams like Spurs and West Ham are still in the race for the league title and this is hardly heard of, but what is interesting is Leicester City are perched nicely at number two at the time of writing.
Whatever happens to Leicester and it is not likely that they will be relegated, Claudio Ranieri their manager should get the manager of the year award. Leicester might just make it into Europe and if they do make it to the Champions League, we will have to pinch ourselves, I do not even want to think about them winning the league, it will be a smashing day for Leicester and football as a whole.
They play a fast entertaining style of football which cannot be said to be typically British or English, This is a far cry from the Leicester of last season with manager Nigel Pearson who was sacked after a few players including his son were caught in Thailand in a sex video and racist scandal.
It was a shameful period for Leicester and for the first time we actually felt bad for the owners who are from Thailand, father and son team; Vichai and Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha. Gary Lineker a former Leicester and 1986 World Cup top scorer even criticized the owners for sacking Pearson.
It was a rough time for the Thai owners, sadly nobody is now praising them for their genius in getting Ranieri. Ranieri itself became a football journey man after his time at Chelsea was up, The Chelsea team which Ranieri built went on to finish runners-up in 2004, the best league placing in 49 years for Chelsea and the core of those players under Mourinho who won the league after Ranieri left was built by Ranieri, even Didier Drogba and Arjen Robben were both identified by Ranieri before Mourinho took over and signed them.
After Chelsea, Ranieri managed Valencia, Parma, Juventus, Roma, Inter Milan, Monaco and finally the Greek national team where he was sacked, as if Leicester was the final football tombstone for Ranieri, he instead resurrected himself and Leicester in the process.
Under Ranieri the club made an exceptional start to the season. Striker Jamie Vardy scored 13 goals over 11 consecutive games from August to November, breaking Ruud van Nistelrooy's Premier League record of scoring in 10 consecutive games. By 5 December 2015, they were two points clear at the top of the Premier League and were the Premier League's leading goalscorers. On 14 December, Leicester defeated defending champions Chelsea 2-1 at the King Power Stadium, with goals from Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. On 19 December, Mahrez scored two penalties as Leicester defeated Everton 2-3 away at Goodison Park. These were Mahrez's 12th and 13th league goals of the season, and the result meant Leicester would top the Premier League on Christmas Day.
Though this Leicester team is more of just Mahrez and Vardy, these two have captured the attention of the media, particularly Vardy, from Stocksbridge Park Steels in the Northern Premier League to the Premier League and England, he has risen to match one of the great strikers of the Nineties, Van Nistelrooy.
Vardy shaped his career at Stocksbridge Park Steels a non-league club after being rejected by Shefield Wednesday at the age of 16, he stayed there from 2007-2010. He went on to play for other non-league teams, Halifax Town and finally at Fleetwood Town, it is a big leap from here to Leicester and now the England national team.
Riyad Mahrez meanwhile came from French outfit Le Havre having made an excellent performance for Algeria in the 2014 World Cup meeting Germany in the second round and taking them to extra time, this was a tough and stylish Algerian team and Mahrez was the perfect fit for Leicester, industrious and creative at the same time he and Vardy combined have tremendous pace.
Names such as Simpson, Huth, Morgan, Drinkwater or Albrighton might not be the who is who of football, but the last time we had some undistinguished names in football was when Nottingham Forest won the old first division now known as the Premier League when they straight away arrived from the old second division now the championship or first division.
Brian Clough was the master at that time he arrived at Forest after being sacked by Leeds United in 1974 (after being in charge for only 44 days) with names like Withe, Gemmill, Needham, Clark, Robertson, Bowyer, Burns and many more journeymen. Forest went on to win European Cups and League Cups, if you want to know how that felt like, just imagine Leicester winning the league now and next season they win the Champions League and the season after that they win it again!
That was what Forest did..but this is the story of Leicester City from the Midlands too, not far from Nottingham.
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