- The Doctor, The Pandorica Opens
Pre-season
Nigel Pearson was sacked. Just like everyone else, I thought it was a bad decision, and an unfortunate one ( I wrote last year: "... it would be sad to see him go particularly if it is for non-footballing reasons..." which proved more prophetic than I thought!) But, as pointed out in HIGNFY, if not for this sex scandal, none of the rest of the fairytale would have happened!
My reaction to Claudio Ranieri's appointment was just like everyone else's: uninspiring. But I was kind of not bothered because my feeling was that it didn't matter too much who that was, we would probably still struggle. I didn't see why bookie's are all so sure that we will go down though. Yes, we will be in a relegation battle (for some periods if not the whole of the season), but the end of last season showed that this team is not so bad. Under a new manager with a honeymoon period, picked up a few wins early on and we would have built some points base that may prove crucial at the end.
Week 1, LEI 4-2 SUN
Thanks to a rubbish Sunderland team, we were (due to goal difference and goal scored) top of the league after the first week of the season. At that time I wrote on my facebook:
We are top of the Premier League! For a day at least...
Little did I know where this would lead us to...
Week 2, WHU 1-2 LEI
We continue to be top of the league after another win. Schmeichel should have been sent off, instead it was their goalkeeper who was sent off. We could easily have lost 1-2 otherwise. This was also the first of many games where we got favourable refereeing decisions (and for WHU, one of the many decisions against them throughout the season.)
Never give up
What followed was a long string of coming from behind, either scoring minutes after the opponent scored, or minutes from the final whistle, to pull back from losing to get a draw or even a win. Examples include 0-2 against Villa (!) but winning 3-2, and 0-2 against Stoke and drawing 2-2, and the same against Southamption. It was as if we couldn't play until we were two goals down. Our inability to keep clean sheets became a talking point - the pizza.
We were growing confidence, perhaps too much, and in-between these games we lost 2-5 to Arsenal, the first loss in the league.
We were still finding the best lineup. I was particularly concerned about how the new players were to be integrated: you don't want to see what many managers do, namely, putting all the new players in the team just because they are big signings; at the same time I was worried that just sticking those new players on the bench, which seems to be what Ranieri was doing, would demoralise them.
It turned out that he was incorporating them very slowly. Fuchs, for example, slowly replaced Schlupp through a period of both playing (with Schlupp as left wing and Fuchs LB). I was somewhat sad to see Schlupp eventually replaced (even though that was because of injury), he played well last season - but it was probably a good idea as Fuchs were perhaps more defensive minded.
Other positions were similar. Kante, for example, was only a substitute (!), unthinkable these days.
We continued to win quietly, with attention turned to Vardy's 11-game goal streak. After week 13's win against Newcastle, we were again top of the table, but no one was alarmed.
to be continued...
Next time: The first big hurdle CHE - EVE - LIV - MNC
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