Leicester City: Ranieri calls for revival of great escape spirit
This season has been a long season for Leicester and it is only just beginning, Manager Claudio Ranieri is already calling for the spirit of the Great Escape to return.
Having seen Leicester City rise from a relegation battle in 2014-15 to becoming Premier League Champions in 2015-16 under Claudio Ranieri, the Italian manager has already seen the Foxes pull of a miracle.
However, he is swiftly approaching the need for a second miracle, one that has relegation escape once again squarely in the forethought of many Leicester fans.
This time last season Jamie Vardy was scoring in his 11th straight Premier League match and the club were at the start of the most improbable run to the English title in modern history.
Now the club are mired in the bottom half just a few places from the drop zone due to what can only be seen as an extended run of poor form in their domestic campaign.
What has been seen as the most bizarre is that their UEFA Champions League form has been exemplary with the club completing a Group topping performance just last week to guarantee a place in the last 16 with a match to spare.
When speaking in his latest press conference, the Telegraph quoted Ranieri with his call to revive the spirit of the club when they made their great escape under Nigel Pearson in 2014-15:
"“They have to play with pressure. They must remember not how last season went but two seasons ago, they now must be focused on this. We have to play with the same character as the season then – the great escape.”"
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Ranieri continues to back his squad and defend his players, but at some point it is going to be hard for him to get both the fans and the controlling members of the club to accept the results that are happening in the Premier League:
"“Something happened last season. The players are human, they are not machines. It is normal they remember last season when everybody played well and everything they tried to do was good – but this year, no. Then you have to reconnect your brain.We are a good team. But we are not a good, good team as Chelsea, for example. Look at Chelsea last season, with a lot of champions they didn’t work so well. This season they have [N’Golo] Kanté more, [Marcos] Alonso – the others are the same. And now they are top. What happened? It is football, these are men.”"
With a cushion earned for their next match in Europe, Ranieri has a chance to truly focus on his domestic matches the next month as the club have six Premier League fixtures in December starting with Sunderland on Saturday.