Leicester’s defiance incredible

For the betting kind, or game predictors like yours truly, no team has left many egg-faced like Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester City.

Right from their second league fixture, which was away to West Ham, they have defied odds. You see, West Ham had just won its opener away at Arsenal and were thus expected to crush Leicester like thumb over a bedbug.

But Leicester won 2-1. Now, last weekend, although Leicester were coming off a 2-0 win over Liverpool in midweek, for many observers, they felt the fixture list had not been fair on them. They were going to the Etihad next, to face the mighty moneybags of Manchester City.

But Leicester defeated Man-City 3-1. If this is not defiance on Leicester’s part, I am struggling to find a new term for it. So much of what Leicester has done this season, at least points to that. And it started from the time they survived relegation.

By Christmas in 2014, they were bottom of the table. Epitaphs about them were written. But they defied that by winning seven of their last nine league fixtures with one of the most arrogant managers one will ever see, Nigel Pearson.

Perhaps, Pearson’s arrogant attitude, then, which entailed repeated reminders to the media that his team would not be relegated, was actually the defiance attitude that indeed saved them from returning to the championship.

Yet, even after that was achieved, the club management defied logic and sacked Pearson. Replacing him with Claudio Ranieri after failing to win anything substantial at clubs with quality players like Valencia, Juventus, Inter Milan and Roma looked foolhardy; especially when you consider Leicester’s resource envelope.

Besides, Ranieri had just been sacked by Greece and all indications were that his tactical and technical powers were on the wane. And he was taking over players that could not catch a second eye of another club beyond those in the bottom three, you bet.

Before this season began, all Leicester could muster was Shinji Okazaki from Mainz in Germany. Apart from being a busy body, largely, Okazaki is not your top finisher.

With 27 goals in 65 games, Okazaki, who makes 30 in April, is the kind of player, who came into the English game for a sojourn, that would help him retire with pride, that he once at least played in the most high-profile league.

Okazaki has four league goals thus far in 23 games. Beyond him, others like Jamie Vardy, who is the Premier League top-scorer on 18, was in league one, three seasons ago. Yet now, he is enjoying a fairytale run, that could see him even play for England at the European Championships later this year.

The fact that all this has been possible with a former Manchester United academy kid, midfielder Danny Drinkwater (how on earth that could be a name with all the names available, unless his parents were just defiant against the norm) is amazing in itself.

Not any less is the fact that while Aston Villa are in the relegation zone, a homegrown talent they discarded, winger Marc Albrighton is making Leicester tick. Needless to say, as Chelsea are where they are on the table, and Middlesborough battle in the Championship, a one central defender Robert Huth that they did not rate so high, scored a brace against Man-City last Saturday.

How ironic! And more so, to find a one unknown Frenchman N’Golo Kante and Algerian Riyad Mahrez lighting up Leicester’s midfield as one of the most efficient in the Premier League while keeping a proven Swiss international Gokhan Inler benched, also demystifies all the obsession football fans have towards spending heavily on marquee players.

Above all, it is defiance at its blatant best. So, as Arsenal host Leicester this weekend, they should be very sturdy. Otherwise, Leicester could continue with the defiance and even win the Premier League title. That will be the day. Of absolute defiance!