EPL Preview: Can Foxes Cope Without Vardy as Kane Leads Spurs Hunt?

There’s been a sea change. Dissident groups previously underground are making themselves heard. It would appear not everybody wants Leicester City to win the Premier League title. A polling card previously housing only the name of Claudio Ranieri’s side now bears another.

From party-poopers to a party in their own right, Tottenham Hotspur are giving floating voters a real dilemma. Has the fickle tide of popularity swung in Spurs’ direction at this late juncture?

Has the boyband charm of Harry Kane, Dele Alli et al come into vogue at the expense of Jamie Vardy’s foaming at the mouth Johnny Rotten-style incandescence? Has Steptoe had his day? Is Toby Alderweireld’s graceful pick-pocketing way of defending that has seen him commit just nine fouls all season, all while wearing an immaculate white suit, now de rigueur over the Greco-Roman wrestling in the penalty box as favoured by Wes “The Mountie” Morgan and Robert “Hitman” Huth?

Having topped the opinion polls since hitting the summit in November, Leicester City have been the People’s Party pretty much all season. As with anything in life, though, from opinions to objects, when something becomes omnipresent it loses its cachet of cool. A backlash has begun in earnest. Quiet, but a backlash nonetheless.

A slurry of articles have been written over the past fortnight meticulously picking apart whether Leicester’s season constitutes a “fairytale” in the traditional sense. 

With a forensic eye for fairytale criteria that bordered on the unnerving, Matt Stead’s piece for Football365 questioned earnestly whether any of the seven dwarfs had ever dived to win a penalty. Perhaps not, but a little known fact is Grumpy once asked for a personal hearing with Walt Disney, having been suspended from the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs shoot for referring to the wicked Queen in a manner not dissimilar to how Vardy spoke to Jon Moss. She wasn’t a James Blunt fan either.

Umbrage has been taken to the extent one would presume the league leaders have insisted they be referred to as Leicester “Fairytale” City at all times. A thousand-yard stare to be issued to anyone who hasn’t read the memo, like when Andy Cole decided he wanted to be called Andrew.

Graham Ruthven asked on Bleacher Report this week: Is Leicester City’s Premier League Title Challenge Really an Underdog Story?

Thankfully, there’s a remarkable success rate these day for surgery to remove one’s tongue from cheek.

In this respect, Leicester have been caught in crossfire of a media construct to which they’ve spent most of the season arguing against. Perpetual reference to fairytales has been met with “one game at time” soundbites, which arrived from the speaker’s mouth only after a key had been turned in their back first.

Leicester City vs. Swansea City, Sunday at 4:15 p.m BST 

Vardy’s “slip” in the box against West Ham United last weekend, and subsequent slip of the tongue, could turn out to be this season’s Steven Gerrard moment against Chelsea two years ago. Is Vardy’s suspension where it all starts to unravel for Leicester?

Gerrard’s most infamous of slips effectively cost Liverpool a first title in 24 years, and by his own admission, it still haunts him daily. Don’t worry, Jamie, it’s only 132-years and counting for Leicester. If you don’t end up winning it, expect Richard III’s skeletal figure and Gary Lineker wearing just his underwear to knock at the door of your dreams nightly.

How Leicester cope in the absence of a player who has scored 22 of their 59 league goals, and not missed a game all season, will likely go a long way to deciding the title race.

The Late Burn of Jamie VardyInside the story of his rise to the top of the Premier League https://t.co/rYFZ8dWwK4 pic.twitter.com/XZv28RPXa6

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) April 21, 2016

Morgan, N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez all richly deserve their respective places in the PFA Team of the Season, but this is a Leicester side built around Vardy. Ranieri has formed his entire game plan all season around pressing from the front and playing on the counter-attack. It’s an approach he hasn’t deviated from, and as such, it’s hard to think Vardy’s absence won’t pose a conundrum of potentially gargantuan proportions.

If a fading and visibly shot Mahrez has one more big performance left in a season in which he is favourite to be crowned its best player at the PFA Awards, it needs to come on Sunday. Especially if, as widely anticipated, Vardy’s ban is extended to include the following week’s trip to an in-form Manchester United. 

It’s safe to say the Algerian will benefit from his fellow professionals having voted at the end of last year, as opposed to at the end of the season. In 2015 he needed 112.6 minutes per goal and 209.1 per assist. This year those numbers drop to 413.7 per goal and 310.3 per assist (stats via Football365’s Daniel …

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