We need to talk about Leicester City

This weekend established two basic facts about the nascent Premier League season. The most important is that a title favourite has now been set: while the battle between Liverpool and Manchester City remains on, that fight is now between a galloping first and a jaded, frustrated fourth. It’s a two-horse race, still, probably, but at whatever equine count you like the league is Liverpool’s to lose.

There’s also been separation elsewhere. While the mid-table is remarkably close — four points separate Sheffield United in fifth(!) with West Ham in 16th — the pack of Champions League hopefuls is well clear. In an average year, this would be disappointing. The likes of Arsenal might be derided for considering fourth place and qualification for Europe’s senior tournament a ‘trophy’, but the battle to avoid the Europa League adds a certain amount of zest to the end of a season.

The reason it doesn’t feel like a shame to miss out on that drama is that it’s not just the usual suspects this time out. Joining Manchester City (fourth, 25 points) are a young, rebuilding Chelsea side (third, 26) and ... Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City (second, 26). Leicester aren’t exactly newcomers to the top four, having famously done ok in that regard a few seasons back. But they’ve been absent from the European places since, finishing 12th, ninth and ninth.

The Foxes’ title-winning side was essentially constructed by combining three great players with a side full of solid but otherwise unremarkable journeymen. N’Golo Kanté in midfield gave Leicester the defensive solidarity and speed in transition to allow Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy to hit opponents quickly, often before they even realised they were in any danger.

But the squad was broken up immediately. Kanté went to Chelsea, immediately winning another title and Premier League Player of the Year. Bereft of their one-man midfield, Vardy and Mahrez could no longer carry the team, the latter eventually wandering off to Manchester City. It came as no surprise that, at least in terms of table position, Leicester failed to build off their championship.

The Foxes, however, made the most of the cash windfalls that came with a surprise season of Champions League football and the sales of Kanté and Mahrez. Rather than try to replicate their freak year, they instead have pumped that money into assembling a well-rounded team of (mostly) young talent. Leicester have always bought players before their breakouts — it’s how they got Kanté and Mahrez, after all. But now the mechanism is going at an industrial scale.

This has financial benefits. Harry Maguire, for instance, was bought from Hull City in for £12 million and sold after two seasons for more than six times as much. Mostly, though, it has on-field effects. Take, for instance, Kanté’s replacement, Wilfried Ndidi. Three years after his arrival from Genk, Ndidi has blossomed into one of the most effective central midfielders in England, effectively replicating Kanté’s old role as a one-man defensive screen at the heart of the pitch.

Ndidi’s presence in midfield allows Leicester to make use of other recent imports: James Maddison and Youri Tielemans, who play just ahead of Ndidi and provide the creative thrust that has made Vardy the league’s top scorer once again. Accompanying Vardy up front is another new recruit, Ayoze Perez. At right back, Ricardo Perreira, signed from Porto in 2018, is working wonders. And so it goes across the pitch.

It’s a balanced, young team, and it’s firing on all cylinders. Leicester have produced some impressive results this season, taking points away at Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur before thrashing an admittedly insipid Southampton, 9-0. Their signature victory, however, came against Arsenal at home.

With the Gunners hanging around at the edge of the top-four race, Leicester weathered a bumpy first half, then scored twice in seven minutes to knock Arsenal out of both the match and, quite probably, the race for the top four altogether. There’s plenty of football left to be played, of course, but right now the Foxes are sitting in second place, nine points clear of fifth.

Are Leicester definitely among the four best teams in the country? Perhaps not. They’ve been beneficiaries of spectacular finishing, particularly from Vardy, who’s scoring at the almost impossible rate of 2.3 shots per goal. But no matter how you slice it, they’ve been at least as good as the supposed competition for that last Champions League spot, and now they’ve got a nine-point cushion to play with.

Much of the credit there has to go to Brendan Rodgers. Of the team that beat Arsenal, six of the starters have less than two years at the club, and Rodgers has had to work out a system that has brought the best out of a previously less-than-coherent group. Ndidi is the key here, but there have been other masterstrokes, including his refusal to buy a centre back to replace Maguire and promoting the unheralded Çağlar Söyüncü to the lineup instead.

Hiring an experienced but inventive manager to shape a young squad brimming with potential has allowed Leicester to go from mid-table to running with the elite once more. And unlike the success they experienced under Ranieri, this Rodgers team feels sustainable. Leicester have quality in every position rather than a trio of stars propping up the whole edifice, which means that no one departure can sink the ship (except possibly the manager’s. Rodgers has, after all, helmed rather heftier vessels).

Maguire’s defection to Manchester United this summer was proof of concept. The Foxes banked almost £80 million for the England centre half, enough to cover the incoming transfers of both Tielemans and Perez, and their defence has improved. It’s this sustainability that’s most interesting about the Leicester project. We’ve seen teams, most notably Southampton, focus on snatching up and developing young talent on a large scale before, but doing so while winning at a credible rate is new and exciting.

Should Leicester hold serve from here on out, and at this point they’re favoured to, they could be around for a while. The Foxes aren’t going to win the league this time, but they don’t look like one-hit wonders this time either.