Leicester City: Premier League 2019-20 revisited – Foxes limp towards Champions League after autumn rush

Brendan Rodgers’ side made a fast start to the season but a tough Christmas run saw form nosedive and they face a fight to keep hold of a once-certain Champions League spot

Back on a bizarre October night at St Mary’s, Leicester City thumped Southampton 9-0 in a ruthless performance filled with a blur of beautifully taken goals. The bulging list of scorers summed up Brendan Rodgers’ mostly young, highly talented Foxes: academy graduate Ben Chilwell started it all, summer signing Youri Tielemans added the second, Jamie Vardy and Ayoze Perez earned a matchball each, before James Maddison added number nine.

After an experience which would prove just as galvanising for Ralph Hasenhuttl’s harrowed Saints, Rodgers did just enough to suppress his post-match grin and keep Leicester’s collective feet on the ground to carry the momentum into a nine-game winning streak. Vardy scored in eight successive matches, England call-ups came thick and fast (despite Maddison’s ill-advised casino visit), and by mid-December they were the only team left clinging on to Liverpool’s tail, eight points behind the league leaders ahead of a highly anticipated meeting on Boxing Day.

Leicester City

2019-20

League position: 3rd

Form: DDLLW

Next three fixtures: Watford (a), Brighton (h), Everton (a)

Cups: FA Cup quarter-final to come against Chelsea, lost EFL Cup semi-final to Aston Villa

Player of season so far: Jamie Vardy

It is easy to forget now just what an extraordinary start to the season it really was: 15 games, 11 wins, only two defeats, with the league’s top scorer on flames and the best defensive record by a distance – something not always associated with The Rodgers Way. Now he was even being linked with the vacant Arsenal job. Ever since his appointment midway through the previous campaign Leicester had shown the form of potential champions: was another miracle brewing?

The answer arrived at Christmas. Heavy back-to-back defeats by Manchester City and Liverpool deflated the Leicester bubble and effectively ended any title race before the turn of the year, and perhaps the sheer gulf in class which revealed itself knocked confidence too. In January Leicester lost the return fixture against a reinvigorated Southampton, and only fleetingly rediscovered that scintillating early form in the following weeks, sliding from an unlikely title challenge to a battle for Champions League places.

The bigger picture is that this has been a memorable season full of promise. Caglar Soyuncu and Harvey Barnes have made major breakthroughs. Ricardo Pereira and Wilfried Ndidi have maintained exceptional levels, and it was no coincidence that the downturn came as the latter struggled with injury. Vardy remains wonderfully prolific in his autumn years. But the reality is that the five and eight-point gaps to fourth-placed Chelsea and fifth-placed Manchester United could easily vanish in a few weeks of packed fixtures to come.

A 4-0 hammering of Aston Villa just before the league went into lockdown did it least deliver a timely boost towards a Champions League spot which would transform the summer transfer window for Rodgers. Much of the groundwork was laid in that autumn surge, nights like that extraordinary onslaught at St Mary’s, yet there remains a final push if Leicester are to return to European football’s promised land.