Premier League team news:

 

Leicester City: In my preseason notes (which you can read below, goodness they were good !) I spoke about what an absolutely charmed life City had with injuries and suspensions last season, not so much this and Kasper Schmeichel and Danny drinkwater are both out today and the Foxes have performed poorly, without one, let alone both. They shipped two at home to Middlesbrough last weekend, who were the joint lowest scores in the EPL going into that game and without Schmeichel alone, have conceded 10 in five this year, he was ever present last season, but in 15/15 they lost 8 from 13 when he was sidelined mid season, just 2/11 when he returned.

 

 

Watford: Watford have several starters facing late test and will definitely be forced into a defensive reshuffle, maybe a major one, as central defender Miguel Britos and ever present defensive midfielder Valon Behrami are both suspended. The Hornets have conceded 12 goals in the last four starts that Britos has missed, Behrami has missed eight games in 2016, all last season through which they only defeated relegated Aston Villa and they conceded at least twice in seven, losing six. They look big losses defensively and we should see goals at the Hawthorns, which was something I did promise myself I would never write again, but there you go !

 

 

It is hard to know if we are the dawn of a changing of the guard at the top of the table and whether Leicester City's win will give confidence and belief to the other semi established top flight clubs , they pick up £100m plus in income per year and that has enabled teams like City, Palace, West Ham, Stoke etc to get competitive in the transfer market and whilst they are not in the £89m for Pogba range, it does mean that the gap has probably closed and I doubt that long term we will just see the Big 4 almost always filling the top 4 spots year after year. But with regard to that, this season and next will be a big learning curve. By the way, it was not just City who surprised last season, Tottenham were their closest challenger until the final day and had not won a top flight title since 1961 and four of the top ten, including the Foxes, had never won one.

That £100m becomes even more valuable when teams like Leicester are using the money very wisely and investing in alternative methods to take on the giants and technology allows smaller clubs to close the information gap and widen the search for players and it is money spent in these alternative methods and things like cryotherapy to assist recovery, which can give teams at the cutting edge an advantage, that they still might not yet have in pure spending power.
 

To win the lottery you ned an incredible amout of luck, in the UK draw the odds are circa 14,000,000 -1 and in footballing terms, Leicester City won the lottery and if they went into that same season 100 times with exactly the same squad and faced the same opponents, they probably would not win it once, someone will want to argue that, but I don't, it is simply an illustration. Everything that could possibly have gone right for City did so and everything that could have gone wrong didn't , they matched the first three numbers by recruiting well, but still needed to get balls 4.5 and six and a magic mumber to fall into place !
 

First up, all the big four , with the exception possibly of Arsenal, underachieved big time. City went the entire campaign with barely an injury and made only 30 changes to the starting line up across 38 games, take my word, that is unheard of, many teams were making three times that number. Team were misfiring against City week after week, they gave up about the same number of chances as Swansea and Watford and there was no regression to the mean, it just kept on that way game after game. They gave up the most attempts of any team in the six yard box (the most !), next highest were Villa and Norwich the bottom two ! They saw only 42.7% of the ball all season and whilst you do not need to dominate possession in modern football to win games, you (should) need more to win a title !
 

They relied heavily on huge team work, moments of individual brilliance and some very shrewd tactics at times from Claudio Ranieri and almost everything they tried worked !

 

Teams were incredibly slow to catch on to City and like many viewers probably did not quite believe what they were watching and felt happy to play them at this game, knowing that City would give them plenty of chances. Late in the season, teams set up much better against them and looked to limit the space in transition and double marked Mahrez etc and then the Foxes hit the magic ball and started scoring suddenly from set pieces !

 

Don't get me wrong, there was so much to like and admire about City and it was good for football that they won and they got reward for huge work in analytics, sports science etc and hit the jackpot in terms of player recruitment.
 

This year, I think they will struggle, or rather, as with everything we look for, I think they are good value to do so !.
 

They have kept Mahrez (at least for now) and Vardy which is great, but it will be very difficult for either, let alone both to have the same impact. Kante has gone, so too has Steve Walsh who scouted and recruited all three, he has been snapped up by Everton and whilst I guess he has done much work already for City for this season, he will be a huge loss. Everyone will want to beat the champions and will be raising their game and giving extra tactical attention to these fixtures, it will no longer be Leicester in town, but the EPL champions. They have a first Champions League campaign to add into the mix and six extra and high profile fixtures, before Christmas, butting still further strain on those huge fitness levels. They cannot get as lucky in front of goal, especially defensively and avoid any injuries of note like last season, that is just impossible and no one wins the lottery twice , do they ?

 

They was one great quote from Walsh last season when asked why they only play two in the middle he said we don't we play "three", Drinkwater and Kante either side ! So they have not just lost one, but two players !