Champions in waiting: Can Leicester City beat Manchester United to make Old Trafford their Theatre of Dreams?

Under Sir Alex Ferguson’s tutelage, at this time of the season, Manchester United fans are generally accustomed to seeing their team complete the formalities to win yet another Premier League title.

However, this time, they are the hurdle, as they welcome Leicester City, who are one win away from the crown, to Old Trafford. The maths is simple— win at Old Trafford and the Foxes will be crowned the Premier League champions, the most unlikely ones at that. And for United, if Leicester wins it means that they are again going to miss out the UEFA Champions League berth as finishing fourth will become inevitable. 

To be fair, Man Utd’s capitulation from the top of the hierarchy and Leicester’s rise is something that even a Manchester United fan can recognise as two sides of the same fairy tale, where for once David keeps on beating all the Goliaths he encounters.  

The unlikeliest of stories

Who would’ve thought that a manager who was christened a serial runner-up and a Tinkerman, would lead a bunch of nobodies to the very top of the Premier League title? And he would do this in an era of oligarchs with bottomless pits of money like Manchester City or Chelsea and corporate behemoths like Manchester United or Arsenal with millions of fans around the world.

Built on peanuts

Mahrez and Vardy have been in the thick of things (Getty Images) 

Just check out how much Leicester spent on their current squad a total of GBP £62.5m, which is cheaper than the amount Manchester United might end up coughing up for Anthony Martial (£61.5m).

In comparison Chelsea FC cost £302 million, Manchester United cost £ 391 million and Manchester City cost £411 million. And even the comparison is flawed because the aforementioned teams and the likes of Tottenham and Liverpool have spent huge sums to get into the Champions League.

If you’d looked at Leicester’s team-sheet before this season, none of them would’ve raised too many eyebrows. Kasper Schmeichel was a goalkeeper living in the shadow of his treble-winning father Peter while Jamie Vardy was playing for Fleetwood Town a couple of years ago and used to make medical splints as a factory worker! Danny Drinkwater was a Manchester United reject while Mahrez, the EPL’s Player of the year, was signed from a second-tier French side Le Havre for a pittance.

Aguero reacts after losing 3-1 to Leicester City in Manchester. (Getty Images)

In fact, when Daily Mail compared the prices of Leicester and Man City on their match-day, here was the difference in squad costs:

Leicester: Kasper Schmeichel (£1m); Danny Simpson (£2m), Robert Huth (£3m), Wes Morgan (£1m), Christian Fuchs (free); Riyad Mahrez (£400,000), N’Golo Kante (£5.6m), Andy King (free), Marc Albrighton (free); Jamie Vardy (£1m), Shinji Okazaki (£7m).

TOTAL: £21m

Man City: Joe Hart (£600,000); Bacary Sagna (free), Nicolas Otamendi (£28.5m), Eliaquim Mangala (£42m), Gael Clichy (£7m); Fernandinho (£34m), Yaya Toure (£24m); Kevin De Bruyne (£56m), David Silva (£24m), Raheem Sterling (£49m); Sergio Aguero (£38m). 

TOTAL: £292.9m

Yet, Ranieri's boys ran through City with a comprehensive 3-1 demolition which led Manuel Pellegrini to admit: “If they can continue like that they have a great chance of the title.”

Leicester City V/s Manchester United – September 21, 2014

The scoreboard after Leicester City shocked Van Gaal's Manchester United. (Getty Images)

The outside world actually took notice of Leicester City on September 21, 2014, when the underdogs ripped apart Louis Van Gaal’s version of Galacticos as a team consisting of Angel Di Maria, Robin Van Persie, Radamel Falcao and Wayne Rooney were ripped apart by Vardy and co. The Red Devils seldom let a 2-goal lead slip and somehow after leading 3-1, they lost 5-3.

After the match, Telegraph football writer Alan Smith, clueless like the rest of us, had in hindsight written about Vardy’s performance: “If he plays for another 15 years, Vardy probably will not experience so much success against a club of United’s stature. All this from a lad who was playing for Stockbridge Park Steels in the Northern Premier League a few years ago.”

Little would Smith know that Vardy and Co would go on to the pinnacle of English football next season and play in the Champions League, rubbing their shoulders with the Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

With the whole world watching, Vardy and company put in a shift full of pace, conviction and skill. In that match, erstwhile manager Nigel Pearson changed his system to counter Manchester United’s diamond formation (created to fit Falcao, Rooney, Di Maria, Van Persie and Herrera) into the line-up.

The shock win rattled Van Gaal to the extent that he tore up the Galacticos manifesto as he completely changed his approach. He became more defensive, started to focus on possession, threw the diamond formation out of the window and started playing the kind of defensive football that antagonises fans and ex-players.

Manchester United ceases to be the swashbuckling side of yore, eventhough the team qualified for the Champions League. The approach hasn’t really paid dividends and Manchester United have become one of the most boring sides to watch in the Premier League without the results to justify to means.

Old school English football to the fore

Claudio Ranieri celebrates with Kasper Schmeichel. (Getty Images)

Leicester, on the other hand, have played more like the Manchester United sides of yore with lightning quick counter-attacks in a simple 4-4-2 system which don't worry about modern football motifs like tiki-taka or maintaining possession. Irrespective of playing at home or away, the first XI has remained unchanged for most of the season and it was only against Swansea that Ranieri's hand was forced because of Vardy’s suspension. Vardy for his part has broken Man Utd’s Van Nistelrooy record, overtaking his successive scoring record by scoring 11 games in a row.

Eschewing the modern-day football for possession and tactical over-thinking, the team have focussed on getting the ball up the field quickly where their forward players have hit defenders with their pace. They have also used the English tactic of long balls, though to call them a long ball team would be a disgrace. They’ve also had an almost injury-free season which simply isn’t down to luck but a training regimen which has paid dividends. Leicester players have been relentless throughout the season, defending as a team and always exhibiting more energy and grit than the other side.

Ultimately football is the winner

Leicester City celebrate the winning the Skybet Championship trophy. (Getty Images)

Cricket commentator Ravi Shastri has popularised a phrase which is now often repeated as a ridicule: ‘Ultimately cricket is the winner’. Leicester City’s rise from 5000-1 odds at the start of the season, however, is an incident where that oft-repeated phrase actually holds true. Whatever happens and even if Leicester fail to win, which is highly unlikely since they need two points, they have still rattled the Premier League and made sure that things are never going to be the same again.

The argument about financial power will be thrown out of the window. The notion that you need to spend huge bucks or have a place in the footballing hierarchy to win the title will be also be tossed out.

No longer can a manager a la Arsene claim Arsenal don’t have enough money, when a Leicester does it. What stops the likes of Everton, Swansea City or West Ham fans from dreaming that they too can win the league?

We’ve seen miracles in football before, but to call this one would belittle the efforts of Raineri and his men. Simply put, they have changed the world of football forever and it’s going to be a brave new world from now on.