Seven points. This, at the time of writing, is the gap that Leicester City hold over second place Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League. It is assured that no one – bar a few lucky Leicester fans placing bets out of optimism rather than expectancy – could have predicted this wild and wonderful season. A season that has seen Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, N’Golo Kante and company rise from relative obscurity to being five games away from lifting the Premier League title.
Although the Premier League has provided us with some great seasons in the past, being settled in added time by Argentine men named Sergio, I’d like to argue that this season, if only for the ground that it broke in terms of teams reaching their potential, has been the greatest season of Premier League football ever. Even if means that I have to admit the hard truth, that in the majority of the noughties and beyond, our beloved league was just a little bit boring.
Let’s be honest with ourselves: many outcomes of Premier League seasons gone by became a little bit predictable. The same outfits that had risen to promotion from the Championship the preceding season went down the next. The big teams that consistently played with exceeding mediocrity, namely Newcastle, Aston Villa and Sunderland, continued to stay up despite performances that would have made them worthy of relegation. Teams that so often come very close to Champions League qualification remained on the outskirts, not breaking onto the hallowed ground occupied by the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United. Of course, Liverpool made a good fight of it a couple of seasons ago, but even a team featuring Luis Suarez and a largely unbroken Daniel Sturridge faded away in the latter parts of the season.
The simple fact is this: the 2015/2016 has been the best Premier League for two main reasons. The first, looking at the obvious, is that Leicester City have had an incredible season, with their players rising from conference and reserve obscurity to England stardom in a single season.
Picking the best example, Jamie Vardy went from playing FC Halifax Town to being a leading light in the Premier League. Most fans, with the state of the transfer market and the business of football in 2016 had no doubt lost a lot of faith in the possibility of Cinderella stories like Vardy’s. But this season has reaffirmed the belief of many that dreams happen in arenas beyond the FA Cup third round. Furthermore, the reemergence of the intercepting midfielder in the form of French player N’Golo Kante, and his subsequent PFA Player of The Year nomination was excellent proof that it’s not just the goalscorers that deserve the credit.
The other facet of this season that has proven groundbreaking is the situation that some of the bigger teams have found themselves in. The obvious example of big teams underperforming this term was Chelsea’s abysmal start to the season, with their awful play leaving them 15th in the table at the end of October, gaining just eleven points from eleven games played. More interesting as the season has gone on, however, is the predicament that Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa have found themselves in. All three have ended up paying the price for years of mediocre football with potential relegation. In fairness, Aston Villa have been looking ropey for a few seasons now, and their utterly depressing football has left them quite frankly deserving of relegation this season.
However, Newcastle, stricken by a failed Steve McClaren reign, a Jonas Gutierrez court case and results including 5-1 losses to Chelsea and Crystal Palace and a miserable 6-1 defeat to Manchester City, have gone from being an almost respected team to relegation ignominy. The likelihood is that they will go down, and when they do it will prove that being a bigger club does not make you safe; whether or not they will emerge from the forest of the Championship isn’t exactly assured, either.
We can only hope that next season is as good as this one has been. If it’s anywhere near as good in the quality of games, with more high level teams disappear into relegation battles and another team rises from the ashes like Leicester, then fans could be looking at a more open Premier League than seen in years. With the openness of this season paving the way for more clubs to follow Leicester’s path, one could say that it was almost guaranteed. But I wouldn’t do that. As they say, chat shit, get banged.
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