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davieG

Premier League 2015/16 Stuff it in here.

By davieG, in Leicester City Forum

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Koke

Koke

Posted
Posted

That Spurs result is genuinely hilarious.

 

All the gobbing off, the conspiracy theories, the arrogance, all of that and they've still come below one of the most ordinary Arsenal sides I have ever seen.

 

Just how the hell have they managed to lose that 5-1? How on ****ing earth have they lost by five goals to one to a shit side who are already relegated, who had ten men lol

 

Look at the defending lol

 

Manchester United's situation as well is just laughable. You think it can't get any funnier and this happens. The lot of it is just surreal. This is surely Derren Brown doing one of his social experiments.

Also shows that they can't handle pressure. Whenever pressure mounted on them they succumbed to it whilst we stood up and were counted. We are easily better than them. It's almost laughable when you look back 3 weeks ago and people said Tottenham are the best team in the league. And after we drew to West Ham and they beat Stoke pundits were convinced Spurs would win 4 out of 4. Theyve lost 2 and drawn 2 lol

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Koke

Koke

Posted
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AVB's Tottenham finished with 72 points in a much harder league, but because he finished 5th he was laughed out of town. Granted he had Bale but Pochettino has Kane.

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Christoph

Christoph

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Also shows that they can't handle pressure. Whenever pressure mounted on them they succumbed to it whilst we stood up and were counted. We are easily better than them. It's almost laughable when you look back 3 weeks ago and people said Tottenham are the best team in the league. And after we drew to West Ham and they beat Stoke pundits were convinced Spurs would win 4 out of 4. Theyve lost 2 and drawn 2 lol

 

I'll put my hand up and admit I was one of the people who assumed Spurs would go on to win them all. Very surprised by their downfall. I didn't think they'd fluff the last 4 games quite as badly as it has turned out. Feels good to be wrong though!

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MC Prussian

MC Prussian

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Reading the fighting cock is a joy to behold. I notice the spurs fans have disappeared off of here

 

Because nothing is more devastating to a Spurs fan than seeing Arsenal finishing above them... again!

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davieG

davieG

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  • Author
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Leicester smash the glass ceiling
  • By: Dave Tickner
  • Last Updated: May 16 2016, 13:31 BST
Dave Tickner looks back on a 2015/16 Premier League campaign that nobody could've predicted - and what it means for next season.
 
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Leicester City won the Premier League and changed everything

 

 

And so the curtain comes down on the Most Unpredictable Season Ever with acontrolled explosion at Old Trafford and an uncontrolled implosion at St James' Park.

I say the curtain comes down, but after the last 10 months it seems absurdly presumptuous to assume Louis van Gaal's moribund Manchester United will not now go ahead and secure the 19-0 victory they require on Tuesday night to pip Manchester City to the final Champions League spot.

It has been an extraordinary campaign. The story of the season - of any season - has been Leicester's. But had it not been for that it would have been Tottenham's. Were it not for Tottenham it would've been West Ham, or Chelsea, or Newcastle, or Villa. Everywhere you looked there was a tale to tell. 

 

Only Arsenal, Sunderland and mid-table's Stoke City could truly be said to have performed precisely as expected across the season as a whole.

The greatest compliment to Leicester is that the most exciting and unpredictable title race ever was in truth nothing of the sort. It only appeared as such due to a wholly understandable collective failure to believe the evidence of our own eyes: that Claudio Ranieri's side were by far the best team in the division.

There was excellence all over the park, radiating from the magnificent N'Golo Kante who enhanced every player in front of him, behind him and alongside him. Kasper Schmeichel, Wes Morgan, Robert Huth, Riyad Mahrez, Danny Drinkwater and above all Jamie Vardy have all enjoyed outrageous seasons. Vardy has now thoroughly condemned every striker who hits a hot streak in non-league football to be saddled with the 'next Jamie Vardy' tag, just as Dele Alli has done to any promising young midfielder in the lower leagues. 

Claudio Ranieri's side were never outside the top two, and rarely looked like anything other than the division's outstanding team. Had this been Chelsea or Manchester City, we would've decried the predictability of their victory, with laments that nobody could challenge them reaching fever pitch during March's astonishing and ultimately decisive run of 1-0 victories. The victories of champions.

But this was Ranieri, not Mourinho. Vardy, not Aguero. Mahrez, not Hazard. Surely they couldn't sustain it. Even as challenger after challenger fell by the wayside, the fact it was "only Leicester" sustained the belief that we were watching a title race and not a 5000/1 procession.

The problem for the Vardy film-makers is that the story is now just too straightforward. Does Vardy's red card and the 2-2 draw against West Ham provide sufficient dramatic peril for the end of act two? It was the only moment that betrayed even the slightest weakness as they chased and secured history with such astonishing ease.

"Leicester City, we're coming for you," crowed the Tottenham fans as Spurs swept Stoke aside 4-0 the following day. Tottenham would not win again, Dele Alli's punch of Claudio Yacob proving a knockout blow to their chances despite mathematical certainty only being provided in a bizarre 2-2 draw at Chelsea a week later. The Battle of Stamford Bridge saw nine Spurs players carded, inexplicably none sent off, and a 2-0 half-time lead discarded.

The good news for England is that Alli's moment of madness came in April in London rather than July in France. The warning signs had been there throughout a dazzling breakthrough season and he could so easily - still could if he has not swiftly learned his lesson - have joined the ranks of the infamous England tournament scapegoats.

Instead, it was only Tottenham's chances rather than the country's that disappeared. His influence was astonishing for any player, never mind a teenager stepping straight from League 1 to the upper reaches of the Premier League.

He reached double figures for both goals and assists. Spurs collected 62 points from the 28 games Alli started, and eight from the 10 he did not. Spurs only won one game when Alli did not start, a 1-0 win over Watford at White Hart Lane when the youngster stepped off the bench on the hour and promptly set up Kieran Trippier's winning goal. The £5m signing from the MK Dons is already Tottenham's talisman.

Like Liverpool two years ago, Spurs have contrived to end their most successful league campaign since 1990 as a laughing stock. But the 30-match unSpursy run between the first four games of the season and the last four points to a bright future once the pain fades and the laughter dies down.

There were echoes of Michael Vaughan's famous "look at them celebrating a draw" speech after the Old Trafford Ashes Test in 2005 in the aftermath of the Stamford Bridge clash. 

 
1 Leicester 81 2 Arsenal 71 3 Tottenham 70 4 Man City 66 5 So'ton 63 6 Man Utd 63 7 West Ham 62 8 Liverpool 60 9 Stoke 51 10 Chelsea 50 11 Everton 47 12 Swansea 47 13 Watford 45 14 W Brom 43 15 C Palace 42 16 B'mouth 42 17 S'land 39 18 Newcastle 37 19 Norwich 34 20 A Villa 17
  • last updated 16/05 13:01

While it was Leicester who smashed through the Premier League's glass ceiling, Spurs (and Chelsea, to be fair) too have done their bit to destroy the old order of things during this baffling campaign.

And that truly is the real outcome of this season. The sands have shifted so thoroughly beneath the oh so predictable Premier League that even Chelsea and Manchester City scrapping for the title with Arsenal and Manchester United just behind them next year would now be interestingly different.

The assumption seems to be that this season has been a one-off. An outlier, a curiosity before order is restored, a future pub quiz question but nothing more.

Having spent all season waiting for a Leicester collapse that never came, there are confident predictions that it will arrive next season. That Mahrez and Kante will leave. That lightning just doesn't strike twice.

If this season has taught us nothing else it's that we should no longer be certain of anything. Maybe Leicester will slump to relegation next year, their title-winning season an astonishing, inexplicable freak.

Surely, though, it's far likelier that a team that has just won the league by 0 points will once again be challenging for the big prizes.

Unless the Mr Ten-Percents get in their ears, it's hard to see quite why Mahrez, Kante or anyone else would want to escape the feel-good atmosphere that currently envelopes the King Power Stadium. The club has no pressing financial need to cash in on its increasingly valuable assets, the ambitious owners instead focused on strengthening the squad ready for a tilt at the Champions League.

Leicester's success was no fluke. While the first half of the season was a giddy ride of thrilling wins and unlikely comebacks, by the time they found themselves in an actual title race at the turn of the year the Foxes had become a lean and seemingly unstoppable machine.

It's probably fair to suggest that a season of consolidation in the top six next time out would represent satisfactory and admirable progress for a club in uncharted waters, but there is absolutely no reason they should set their sights so low.

If Leicester hold on to their new stars this summer, there are fewer question marks against their name than any of the massed ranks of teams looking to usurp them.

Once Arsenal have stopped laughing at Sunday's Peak Spurs, they will reflect on a season of Peak Arsenal. They have safely secured another Wenger Double of Champions League qualification and St Totteringham's Day, but this season represents an astonishing missed opportunity that is far harder for Wenger to explain away than previous failures.

Arsenal's was a failure of ambition. Having convinced themselves it's impossible to win the league when pitted against the petrodollars at Chelsea and Manchester City, it has become self-fulfilling even when those sides aren't there. Arsenal were top of the table in January but out of the title 'race' barely two months later. Wenger's position is as secure as ever, but they surely cannot tolerate another season of failing to challenge for the title now Leicester have changed all the rules. Can Arsenal finally put together a full season?

At Chelsea and Manchester City, the uncertainty comes in the form of new managers with no Premier League experience, and two squads in urgent need of upheaval. Both will spend money, both will surely improve on dismal 2015/16 campaigns. Both absolutely have to.

Chelsea's horrific defence of their title was the biggest talking point in the first half of the season before everyone noticed Leicester were still in the top two. Improvement under Guus Hiddink was inevitable but only relative, with a host of draws - especially at home - meaning that while the Blues would have no humiliating flirt with actual disaster neither would they close the gap on their more customary rivals from Manchester or North London. A late-season return to form for Eden Hazard is encouraging, but few Chelsea fans would've started the season expecting its highlight to be a 2-2 draw that ensured Tottenham would not win the title.

The only certainty at Manchester United is that they will get a new security partner. Incredibly it is not yet certain they will have a new manager, and, with a few notable exceptions, theirs is an uninspiring squad unbecoming of the club.

Liverpool are another huge unknown quantity next season. They effectively wrote off their league season with a managerial change that should provide plenty of long-term gain for the short-term pain. Jurgen Klopp's heavy metal football requires specific players and a specific method. He will bring his own players in during the summer and, after a seven-month reconnaissance mission that could yet end with silverware and Champions League qualification, the future looks bright at Anfield. Next year really could be their year.

Tottenham have their best team of the Premier League era and the best young manager in the division. If the painful end to the season leaves no lasting scars on the youngest squad in the league, they can go again next season - ideally with at least one other striker on their books so Golden Boot winner Harry Kane doesn't have to play every single game in the Champions League as well as the Premier League.

West Ham and Southampton have enjoyed excellent seasons of solid progress and both will reasonably believe they can be stopping stones to bigger and better things. West Ham in particular have played some of the best football and in Dimitri Payet had one of the most joyfully watchable players around. The "be careful what you wish for" gamble in replacing Sam Allardyce with the less predictable but infinitely more exciting Slaven Bilic has paid off handsomely.

Next season brings another gamble with the move to the Olympic Stadium (The Other Boleyn Ground). Long term, being effectively given a brand new stadium by the British taxpayer is clearly a no-brainer for the club, but short-term it will take time to replicate the Upton Park atmosphere even if they do bring the bubble machines with them. But who knows? Maybe it will inspire them to greater heights. In this brave new world they could just as easily end next season in the top four as the bottom three, and you have to love them for that.

And that, really, is the gift this season has given us. No prediction can ever be laughed at again. "I think West Ham could win the league" is now an acceptable thing to say in company, and who knows who could follow big boys Aston Villa and Newcastle to the Championship next term.

In the post-Leicester world, absolutely nothing is certain. Apart from Arsenal finishing somewhere between second and fourth. And Spurs being behind them. And Sunderland ending up 17th. And Stoke ninth. But apart from that, anything can happen. The Premier League may not be the best league in the world. It may not be the most exciting. But Leicester just made it the most interesting.

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Ebok

Ebok

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Posted

This made me chuckle..

 

http://www.football365.com/news/16-conclusions-premier-leagues-final-day

 

 

Losing 5-1 is frustrating. Losing 5-1 to a relegated team only adds to the woe. Losing 5-1 to a relegated team with ten men piles more woe on top of woe. Losing 5-1 to a relegated team with ten men and allowing your rivals to overtake you on the final day is absolutely exceptional work. Tottenham didn’t so much shoot themselves in the foot as bathe in hot oil before jumping into a fire.

 

 

After yesterday... I notice some of them finally appreciate us  .. lol... (  you need to log in to see other section of the fighting cock forum  )

 

Thank you Leicester. But for you we would have been conceding the title to Woolwich today. Great job.
 

 

 

Deserved champions.

We are wankers. To steal third in a two horse race with a ****ing public service announcement is a disgrace

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Matt

Matt

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:crylaugh:

How on earth do Chelsea get the bigger fine?

Tottenham players were a disgrace that night, they got away with several reds, several bans and now a smaller a fine.

It doesn't matter anymore, it's all over and it doesn't effect us but I just can't work that out.

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Webbo

Webbo

Posted
Posted

:crylaugh:

How on earth do Chelsea get the bigger fine?

Tottenham players were a disgrace that night, they got away with several reds, several bans and now a smaller a fine.

It doesn't matter anymore, it's all over and it doesn't effect us but I just can't work that out.

Because they had previous for the same offence.

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Matt

Matt

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lol lol wtf.

 

Why do people say stuff like "if this had happened". 

 

... It didn't happen.

 

Because "little old Leicester" won it and "they have no right"!

 

If anyone else, certainly the normal teams, the 'big' clubs had won it these article wouldn't exist.

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nigelbee

nigelbee

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Reporting on 5 live just now that odds for Man U to win 19 nil against Bournmouth tonight are 1000 to 1. (To qualify for Champions League) So that's 5 times more likely than what our heroes have done lol!!

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