Leicester City is Reborn
Why the worst thing that has ever happened to Leicester City could actually be one of the best.
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And so Leicester City reach the latter of what was supposed to be the darkest season in their history. Never before had they stepped out onto the green of a League One pitch, and frankly for a team with a Premiership stadium, history and mentality, it was an embarrassment. However with Saturday’s exhilarating 2-2 draw against their title rivals MK Dons, things don’t seem too dark. In fact Leicester may well be seeing the light for the first time in six years.
Every Championship season since Leicester’s relegation from the Premier League in 2004 started out with promotion hopes and ended with mid-table obscurity or a battle against relegation. The wheels were slowly starting to come off and past pride was melting into anger and frustration. Managers came and went, hopes were born and shattered and suddenly Leicester were staring down the barrel of the unthinkable. And it happened. Leicester were relegated into the depths of the Football League.
Now over five months later and Leicester are cruising in first place with a striker who can’t stop scoring and a team that just won’t lose. The wheels that fell off have been firmly re-attached and colour is finally returning to their face. Relegation, though painful, has turned out to be exactly what Leicester needed.
Not only have Leicester managed to keep the same manager for the entire season, which for them has become something of an achievement, but they’ve now developed a winning mentality. By beating teams in League One, Leicester’s given themselves a new perspective; a realisation that they are better than the situation they find themselves in. This comes with its own stability, and whilst before they were struggling to find a leg to stand on, now they’ve firmly found their feet and can start to look upwards.
The niggling fear and perhaps the outsider’s cynicism is that once Leicester return to the Championship, they will return to old ways and find themselves fighting for survival once again. This however is not necessarily how the trend goes. A look at Leicester’s title competitor MK Don’s reveals how promotion within in the Football League does not automatically equal a season of relegation battles. In fact for them it was quite the opposite, as they find themselves second in League One after finishing first in League Two in the previous season. Indeed a look a Bristol City shows how this can happen after League One promotion. Not only were they fighting for promotion in their following Championship season, but they actually spent some of it at the top of the league.
As a further bit of encouragement Leicester also have the fortune of an investing chairman in Milan Mandarich, who seems just as determined as they are to get them back to the Premier League. In the end this will probably make the difference for Leicester, and with a few key signings who knows what could happen next year. Relegation could well have kicked Leicester City onto a rampage.
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