Premier League 2016-17 preview, predictions: No. 8, Leicester City
With the 2016-17 Premier League season kicking off this weekend, FC Yahoo is rolling out previews for all 20 teams. We’ll be working our way up from the bottom of our predicted table, all the way to the champions.
Last season: You’ve probably heard that Leicester City won the Premier League. You’ve probably heard that it did so against 5000/1 odds. The word “unbelievable” gets thrown around a lot in sports, but Leicester’s run was truly unfathomable.
What’s changed: Manager Claudio Ranieri and the club have had an intriguing offseason. They set out to add depth, and did just that by bringing in defensive midfielder Nampalys Mendy from Nice, forward Ahmed Musa from CSKA Moscow, defender Luis Hernandez from Sporting Gijon, goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler from Hannover, and attacking midfielder Bartosz Kapustka from Cracovia.
The other goal was to hold on to last year’s catalysts, namely the trio of N’Golo Kante, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. Kante is gone, off to Chelsea. Vardy will stay, having spurned the advances of Arsenal. Mahrez’s future still remains very much in doubt.
FC YAHOO TAKE
Joey Gulino: The collective footballing world is sleeping on the Foxes. They probably won’t win the Premier League again, but there’s plenty of reason to believe they’ll contend for a top-four spot. They’ve filled out the squad for the European workload, and the loss of Kante will be negligible if they can hold on to the wizardly Mahrez. If this was any other champion, and it had established a culture of hard-working enthusiasm, and it returned nearly all of its key contributors (including one of the steadiest hands in the managerial business), we’d be singing its praises. Instead, because the name is “Leicester” and not “Chelsea” or “Manchester United”, we’re dogging them. Not me. Leicester’s stay in the top four extends at least another season.
Alex Baker: Leicester surprised everyone by winning the title last season but looks unlikely to achieve anything like that this time. Even if the Foxes had managed to keep hold of Kante, they have nothing like the depth required to compete in the Premier League and the Champions League. Meanwhile, the usual suspects — City, United, Chelsea, Liverpool — have invested heavily in a bid to reclaim the title from the upstart Midlanders. The pattern we see with most outlier league winners — Blackburn, Montpelier, Kaiserslautern, Wolfsburg — is that they follow up with a mid-table finish. Everything about Leicester suggests it will do the same.
Bookmakers say: Point total over/under: 53.5 | Title odds: 28/1 | Relegation odds: 14/1
FC YAHOO PREDICTIONS
Shahan Ahmed: 8 | Ryan Bailey: 10 | Alex Baker: 9 | Henry Bushnell: 8 | Joey Gulino: 4 | Joe Lago: 8 | Leander Schaerlaeckens: 7 | Average: 7.7 (8th)
More Previews
Arsenal | Bournemouth | Burnley | Chelsea | Crystal Palace | Everton | Hull City | Leicester City | Liverpool | Manchester City | Manchester United | Middlesbrough | Southampton | Stoke City | Sunderland | Swansea City | Tottenham | Watford | West Brom | West Ham
