According to the captain of Leicester City Football Club upon winning the Premier League in 2015/16, there was a method to the madness occurring on Filbert Way exactly 10 years ago. As a matter of fact, a decade on, winter is the precice time when the Foxes were considered almost unstoppable that year. Inescapably, Wes Morgan was a big part of the victory, if a little surprisingly too.
And the East Midlands team certainly were not to be stopped in 2016. They flew to the summit of the English top flight and remained there for the entire campaign. However, the triumph was an unlikely a feat that has, supposedly, ever transpired in sport, let alone merely football. Although, Nottingham Forest's double European Cup wins in 1979 and 1980 (reluctant as I am to point it out) under the ultimate gaffer, Brian Clough, is arguably a more impressive or significant accomplishment. They were a prompted club at the time.
Nevertheless, and as stated in Daily Star's 'Exclusive', Morgan did rather unexpectedly lift the trophy in spite of nearly being relegated the season prior. So the former Forest centre back really was an unlikely winner that year; and City's accomplishment is often mentioned as better or on a par with the Tricky Trees. But now 'big Wes', as some of us in Leicester's Blue Army fan base know him, has explained the secret to the success.
Leicester City PL title-winner Wes Morgan cited togetherness and reward as significant elements of the Foxes' formula
I would just like to add to Morgan's theory before I outline his reasons for the mammoth achievement: the Moneyball paradigm. City found hidden gems, statistical monsters, capable journeymen and overlooked ballers at low valuations and assembled an incredibly balanced and adept side.
The LCFC collective was generally superior to what people believe. Yet Morgan rightly focuses on the connection with management and owners, jovial teammates, belief and unification:
"Everyone wants to know what the secret was. I think there was no magic formula that someone could take from us and then put it into a team and for that to be successful,” he said.Wes Morgan
“I think I always kind of say, there's a couple of things: It's the group of players we had, such a strong team that was so together. And that was not just the team, that goes into the management and the board and the owners as well. We had that banter back and forth with the ownership. The management was great too. They just supported us and helped us as much as possible. The team was together and I think you have to add a bit of luck in there as well. If you look at that season, top teams weren't performing at their top level."