Team Focus: Written Off Foxes Turning Season Around in Survival Hunt

Leicester City may not be able to spoil Chelsea’s party tonight, but they can delay it, and potentially set up celebrations of their own. The challenge of facing Nigel Pearson’s team certainly can’t be dismissed in the way it might have been a few weeks ago, especially since the midlands side have been so successful in dismissing all thoughts that they were the likeliest to be relegated first.

They have turned over perceptions as well as turning over the entire relegation battle. Leicester are now far from a side to be taken lightly, having won four successive games to put themselves among the favourites for survival. It is greatly helped by the fact they have such a favourable run-in, with four home games and three matches against teams around them. One reason that is now such a positive, however, is because Leicester have inverted their season in another way too.

For so long, one of the curiosities of their campaign was that they played so well against the elite teams - putting in some hugely respectable performances, and getting some really rousing results - but were more of a light touch against teams they could have been beating. It was something Jose Mourinho picked up on in his pre-game press conference.

“I was surprised with their bad position because, for me, they’re a good team, good players. We played them very early in the season at Stamford Bridge and I could feel the quality of the team… I analysed them in the last four or five matches, and they’re playing well. The results are coming.”

That’s perhaps because a greater intensity has come too. This isn’t a team “waxing and waning”, as was put to Pearson in one of his more notorious moments this season. It is one striding.

The stats beyond the facts that they are just winning more games are all too clear, emphasising the tweaks that have transformed their points return and hopes. Pearson has kept the application of the matches against the top four, but added a directness and bravery that has brought better results.

Leicester are playing slightly more long balls, at 76.8 compared to 71.8, and that has brought more shots - 14.5 rather than 11.3 - and, crucially, more shots on target. That obviously reflects the fact they’re working themselves into better positions, and their defence has started to take shape too. A back line that had previously been prone to some atrocious mishaps has shored up. They have only allowed an average of 11 shots against them compared to 15.5.

The key will be maintaining this greater focus for the run-in. This is where Pearson’s particular idiosyncrasies may be important. The manager has rightfully attracted commentary for some of his more outlandish moments and press conferences this season, but he also displays the intensity he will want from his team. The two may well be linked, as his hugely respectable managerial record indicates. He is also well aware of all this, as he made clear in an interview with the Guardian at the weekend.

“I can sense when there is a shift, all of a sudden it’s ‘Leicester will be all right now’. Bullshit,” he says. “We’ve got to be really focused now, try and influence what you can here and not join in with the daily and weekly debates. It’s almost like Peter Snow’s Swingometer on election night. And how interesting is that? Well, it’s not, is it? The bottom line is that results come in when the votes are counted and yet people put so much emphasis on a swing which may not actually have a huge bearing on it. Ultimately we’ve got to try and do our own job.”

Their next job is to nullify Chelsea. It’s a big ask, but so was their predicament just a few weeks ago.
 

Do you think Leicester will survive this season? Let us know in the comments below