The short-term reasons for the former champions’ decline are various but their season of famine shouldn’t be a surprise
once said, is a number. Which might have made sense for the groundbreaking Dynamo Kyiv manager, with his high-school medal for mathematics, but for most people who follow sport is a little disconcerting. We want to believe in heroes and glory, in imagination and genius, in fate and curses. Even if we acknowledge it probably is quite important, the thought of football as a series of vast interlocking spreadsheets feels a little dry.
All of which makes the idea that Leicester’s battle against relegation is merely regression to the mean unpalatable. And perhaps it isn’t that, or at least not just that. There are plenty of short-term reasons for the 2016champions’ decline. But equally the odd season of feast or famine shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
Between winning promotion in 2013-14 and the end of last season, Leicester averaged 56 points a campaign. Last season that would have been enough to place them eighth. Which feels about right given that last season they did, indeed, finish eighth. If Leicester take one point from their remaining three games of the season – which, given that after Liverpool on Monday they face Newcastle and West Ham, is plausible – they would have underperformed that 56-point average by the same 25-point margin they exceeded it by when winning the title in 2015-16.
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