Originally Posted by
Giggs
TIME 4 CHANGE Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs are all vulnerable ? Leicester and the rest could smash the status quo
Dave Kidd
The SUN , UK
THE question put to Jamie Vardy on Match of the Day sounded almost insulting.
?You?ve been tipped as the club to disrupt the top six this season, is that how it?s feeling??
The top six? This is the striker who led Leicester City to the Premier League title by ten clear points four seasons ago.
Vardy is as clinical as ever, after 12 goals in 15 matches under manager Brendan Rodgers, who is crafting a very different-looking Foxes side to Claudio Ranieri?s counter-attacking title-winners.
During Leicester?s miracle campaign, all of the Big Six were either in transition or chaos.
And this season, Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United are all vulnerable.
After Liverpool and Manchester City, the other Champions League places are genuinely up for grabs.
Not just for Leicester, the most obvious candidates, but for West Ham, Everton and perhaps even Wolves.
Following the ridiculous wacky-races routine at the end of last term ? when Chelsea and Tottenham collapsed over the line into the top four, with Arsenal and United even more deeply flawed ? there has been no improvement at those four clubs.
After four games, Chelsea, Spurs and United are already seven points off the top ? and this is no mere reaction to an early-season league table yet to settle down.
Spurs may come together with boss Mauricio Pochettino promising to stop sulking after yesterday?s closure of the international transfer window but they have lacked their usual dynamism and have a glaring problem at right-back.
Arsenal, as was obvious in Sunday?s North London derby draw, remain a shambles at the back, while club-record signing Nicolas Pepe looks overpriced at ?72million.
United and Chelsea have too little experience either in the dugout or on the pitch, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Frank Lampard bank on youth.
When Leicester won the title as pre-season relegation favourites, their extraordinary triumph should have given belief to every top-flight boardroom and dressing room, that Champions League football, at least, was no longer an impossible dream.
Yet during the last three campaigns, no one outside the established elite has come close. This year promises to be different.
Vardy answered his question politely, agreeing that it would be tough but that the top six was ?what we want and what the manager wants? and asking ?who says it can?t happen??
Well precisely no one. And it is inconceivable that such an evangelical optimist as Rodgers doesn?t believe in a top-four finish.
This Leicester side, who outplayed Chelsea in their 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge, is comfortable on the ball and pleasing on the eye.
The club?s academy has mined diamonds in Ben Chilwell, Harvey Barnes and Hamza Choudhury, while the Foxes recruitment has been imaginative in Youri Tielemans, Ayoze Perez and Dennis Praet.