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Is Leicester City’s Premier League Title Challenge Really an Underdog Story?
- Updated: April 20, 2016
The only thing predictable about this season in the Premier League has been its unpredictability. In another sense, however, a common thread has woven through the 2015/16 campaign. With Leicester City leading the title race, West Ham pushing hard to reach Europe and Bournemouth staying up, this season has been the season of the underdog.
The underdog is the embodiment of English football’s spirit. The tale of its triumph is a narrative almost inherently cultivated in the country’s sporting conscience, imploring its subscribers to always believe the impossible can be achieved. It’s a worthy sentiment, but does the underdog story exist any longer in the Premier League?
A Leicester City title victory would be hailed as the greatest underdog tale of modern times, with Claudio Ranieri’s side upsetting the odds to lift the trophy they weren’t meant to get anywhere near. Indeed, their triumph would make for a compelling story that would be told for generations to come; rightfully so.
But is it really an underdog story, as such? The Foxes might have a squad worth a fraction of Manchester City’s, Manchester United’s or Chelsea’s, but they are still the plaything of a Thai billionaire, providing a front for Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s King Power empire. He arrives at home matches in a helicopter, landing on the pitch. It’s hardly Roy of the Rovers stuff.
The same goes for Bournemouth. Their rise through the leagues under Eddie Howe has been sensational, with the Cherries playing their first Premier League season. What’s more, having reached 41 points, the south coast team are on course to avoid relegation back to the Championship.
But they too, like Leicester City at the top of the Premier League table, aren’t quite the pure epitome of the archetypal underdog. Bournemouth are owned by Russian businessman Maxim Demin, who became a 50 percent stakeholder in the Cherries in 2011. Since then, the club have gone from League Two to the Premier League, where they will stay for at least one season more.
Not much is known about Demin, with the Russian a reserved and …
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