Quinn’s end of year review

In his latest column, Niall Quinn reflects on 2016 in his end of year review including Leicester’s title triumph and England’s woes.

Welcome to this column’s end of year review – the only annual look back that you can read before you’ve finished your Christmas shopping.

So. 2016 will be remembered by historians as the year of Leicester City. 

The Foxes won the Premier League and boggled the imaginations of all of us old school romantics who wondered what we might have done if we’d put money on them at 5000/1. 

Claudio Ranieri single-handedly revived the market for Italian managers – a stock which had gone flat after Fabio Capello and Roberto Mancini slipped away.      

Chelsea picked the best of the crop in Antonio Conte. Watford went Italian too and opted for Walter Mazzarri – the first Walter I can remember in English management since Wally Downes graced the stage. No reporter has dared to call Watford’s boss Wally, yet. 

Swansea began the season by bringing Francesco Guidolin home to meet the folks. He seemed like a very nice man but got coldly dumped after just a few dates.

The romance of Leicester’s win cued a Jamie Vardy movie, although the what-happened-next sequel is starting to look far more more interesting. Vardy and Ranieri are now hovering above the relegation booby trap like Sean Connery and Harrison Ford in that Indiana Jones movie fittingly called the Last Crusade.    

Whatever happens, Leicester can always say that they gave hope to footballing underdogs everywhere. Already this season, we have seen unlikely signs of life from teams like Nice in France, Leipzig in Germany and Sevilla in Spain.

Considering that Leicester won the title with ten points to spare, the only fly in their ointment must have been the chorus of pundits who spent the first half of 2016 telling the world that Leicester had succeeded only because every other club that was bigger and richer had failed. The giants had all taken their eye off the ball.  

The evidence of this season is that the pundits were right [that’s why pundits make the really big money] and with the new broadcasting rights deal swinging into place, all the usual suspects are back in contention.

There is a bottleneck of contenders for Champions League places and the football has been very good but defending seems to have gone out of fashion. Even Chelsea, who have been easy to dismiss as a basket of stealth over the years, are playing some lovely football. 

We have also moved into the era of The Manager. They have become stars in their own right. The standard camera shot after a …

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