Will it actually come down to Manchester City vs Leicester City for the title fight?

As a Manchester City fan, I came into the season with a strong positive opinion of our club and sky high expectations. I firmly believed that we have a strong chance to win the league this season after a solid offseason fixing the perceived issues with the team last season. At the beginning I laid out a set of likely scenarios for what I thought would be the title fight. I expected a Chelsea vs City title fight, Arsenal vs City, or perhaps even a Man United vs City battle. Sitting at second place right now however, is a completely unexpected team, Leicester City.

Leicester City’s rise to the top early this season has elicited really varied opinions, with shock being the prevalent attitude. Not even the most positive Leicester supporters can say that they realistically expected Leicester sit in second place after more than a third of the season. Barely surviving relegation last season, Leicester’s amazing run early this season is shocking and you don’t have to look far to see plenty of people discrediting Leicester City with increasingly absurd mental gymnastics. Some pundits like Rio Ferdinand seems to believe that Leicester’s success has to be built on poor performances by the rest of the league.

To me I feel that this line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. After all, one can make the same comment in reverse: “Chelsea is battling relegation right now.. are they that bad or does that tell you about the low standard of the league compared to others?” Most people who write off Leicester’s achievements are mostly basing their judgement on pedigree, writing off the club’s achievement as simply luck or blaming it on their opponents under performing. This is a strongly insulting and counterproductive attitude, and at the end of the day, it is little more than just another manifestation of “big club bias”.

NFL star Chris Harris wrote this brilliant article discussing the effects of pedigree on how it affects our judgement of athletes. If you have the pedigree of being a former star, or a former top prospect, it influences how people view your performance. A middling performance by a top prospect would often get judged more favorably than a similar performance by a nobody. Big transfers get more chances to fail, since clubs don’t want to see their investment go down the drain.

When it comes to judging performance however, pedigree really doesn’t matter much. Despite not signing big stars or top prospects, it is undeniable that Leicester City is performing spectacularly. With 8 wins and only 1 loss, Leicester isn’t exactly scraping by. A solid goal difference of +8 shows that they have put on some strong performances. Along the way, the relatively unknown Jamie Vardy managed to score in 11 consecutive games, smashing a premier league record along the way.

It is undeniable that so far, Leicester is probably playing like one of the best teams in the world. However, despite the strong performances to start the season, I do not believe that Leicester City are in a strong position to challenge for the title, however, I won’t be surprised if Leicester end up challenging for a European place or perhaps even top four this season. In my opinion, Leicester City faces two major challenges, strongly limiting their odds of successfully challenging for the Premier League title.

First of all, Leicester lacks depth. Injuries, suspensions, and runs of poor form are inevitable over the length of the long premier league season, and unlike say, Manchester City, Leicester City simply lacks the depth to compete consistently at a high level. For instance, with 14 goals, essentially Jamie Vardy is essentially carrying the Leicester offense. If he gets injured or suspended (something he was quite close to when he flipped off the ref a few days ago), could Leicester still assemble a strong enough attack to blow the opposition away like they have been doing? Their other strikers Ulloa and Kramaric have only 1 goal between the two of them!

Despite their spectacular start, signs do point towards Leicester’s strong start being unsustainable. Their defence so far has been quite woeful, they’ve conceded more goals than anyone else in the top 7. Their offense is also mostly riding on the shoulders of Mahrez and Vardy, and it remains to be seen if they can keep this up after other clubs change their game plans to target these two.

As a Manchester City fan, do I really anticipate a long, drawn out title fight with Leicester City? Probably not. I am amazed by their spectacular start, and hats off to them. But in the end, they just lack the defense and the depth to really dream of fighting all the way to the end.