On Saturday night, Leicester beat Watford in a match that resembled a battle from the first World War to go five points clear at the top of the league.
It was hard to believe that a low-quality game like this could have such a bearing on the destination of the title, but that's the nature of this Premier League campaign. No season has ever been more difficult to explain.
The unpredictability of the title race has prompted some observers to hail this as the most entertaining season ever, which raises some questions about the nature of sporting drama.
In fictional drama, unpredictability alone isn't enough. The story also has to make sense. What would the critics say about an episode of the Sopranos in which Tony suddenly, and without explanation, turns into a frog and hops away into the undergrowth?
That, after all, is more or less what happened to Chelsea this season. Their unforeseen meltdown made scarcely any sense at all, but the story gripped the football world throughout the autumn and brought happiness to untold millions.
Human nature
A lot of the fun of the Chelsea situation consisted in trying to work out just what the hell was going on. It’s human nature to find yourself groping for some kind of narrative that finds method in madness.
In the absence of some vaguely plausible theory explaining why the title race turns out as it does, we’re left with the disquieting conclusion that the competition we devote so much time to following is really nothing more than a random outcome generator – a sweaty, 10-month, live-action version of the machine that spits out the winning lottery balls.
This is new territory for the Premier League. Since the competition's inception, the story that has explained everything has been the story of money. It was conceived as a scheme by which the top clubs could take more of the money in English football for themselves. The four richest clubs in the league are the same four clubs that have won 22 of the 23 titles. The only other club to win it, Blackburn Rovers, spent their way to the title thanks to a rich owner.
Knowing how money has shaped the history of the Premier League it was reasonable to expect that the recent record TV deals could cause some patterns to shift.
The massive infusion of TV money has reduced the financial gap between the big and small clubs in the Premier League, while opening up a gulf between the English clubs and the rest of Europe. Small English clubs are now richer than big clubs in other leagues, and can afford to poach their best players.
For instance, to take the specific case of Leicester, their turnover of £104 million (€134m) means they're currently earning more money than clubs like Roma, Marseille and Benfica. This is why we are seeing players like Dmitri Payet and Andre Ayew playing for teams like West Ham and Swansea.
When even the little clubs in the league can afford to sign top-level players, you have an explanation for why the big clubs are suddenly finding it more difficult to put together the long sequences of victories to which we have grown accustomed. It’s a season in which the old marketing cliches about there being no easy games in this league have actually started to come true.
But the theory does not explain how Leicester, the team with the 17th-most expensive squad in the division, have somehow emerged on top of the pile. If the games have become more difficult for Manchester United and Arsenal, they're more difficult for Leicester too.
How have they ended up leading the league? Well, they have a clear gameplan, an impressive level of fitness, a solid defence, a couple of in-form attacking players, and at certain key moments, such as Danny Drinkwater’s looping deflected shot against West Brom, they’ve had luck. This, it turns out, might be all you need.
Their players will know better than anyone how much can change in the nine games that remain. It was over the last nine games last season that they turned around their form and resurrected a season that looked certain to end in relegation.
There are plenty of recent examples of leads comparable to Leicester’s being overhauled. In 2013/’14, Chelsea led the league by five points with nine games to go, and finished third. In 2011/’12, Manchester United led by eight points with six games to go and finished second.
Key moments
In those cases, though, the leaders were being pursued by a
Manchester City
team that meant business. This season, City haven’t beaten any other team in the top eight. Arsenal, likewise, have repeatedly proved inept at key moments.
The most credible threat to Leicester comes from Tottenham, purely because they have the least ground to make up, but they’ve already played eight more matches than Leicester, with a smaller squad and more Europa League fixtures to come. Will they have the energy to sprint down the final straight?
Right now, the biggest reason to doubt that Leicester, in this weirdest of seasons, will go ahead and win the league is the fact that they are currently leading it.
