Why Leicester City shouldn’t be ruled out of the Premier League title race

We are halfway through November and Leicester City are second in the Premier League table with 26 points – so why are they not a part of the title conversation?

The reluctance to consider them as a genuine threat to Liverpool and Manchester City mainly stems from the old adage that “you’re either a big club or you cannot challenge for trophies”, which, quite frankly, was reduced to a load of bollocks in 2016.

But it couldn’t happen again, could it? After all, Brendan Rodgers is no Claudio Ranieri and this is 2019, the year of English football’s most fabled darlings, Liverpool – or is it?

Well, here’s a fact for you: it could happen again. Here are three reasons why:

No baggage

The biggest advantage Leicester have is that they do not carry any baggage. If anything, they have a historic season to look back on, when they smashed all the records and defied all the odds to conquer England.

It was a similar scenario in 2015/16 as everyone kept ruling them out and they simply kept winning one game after the other. That no one gave them a cat in Hell’s chance worked in their favour, mainly because it allowed them to play pressure-free.

What we are seeing now is a repeat of exactly that. Leicester are doing well and everyone is admiring them but not in the same way as Liverpool, City and even Chelsea, so there is no pressure at all. You can see that the Foxes are just happy to carry on the way they are, seeing as they are way ahead of where they originally planned to be. Their current position in the league is therefore is an injection of confidence, not jitters.

It is not the same for the other contenders. Liverpool have their failed titled challenges on the back of their mind as well as the UEFA Champions League, whereas for the Citizens, a”Threepeat” is high on the agenda, as is European glory. Remember, their ambitions aren’t flexible. Leicester’s are.

What about Leicester? They are in a winter wonderland.