2015-2016: Just an historical success or also a sudden “Big Four” underperform?

The 2015-2016 season will forever be remembered as one of the greatest sporting upsets in history, as Leicester City won the Premier League title. But which have been the actual factors that contributed to the small club's remarkable success?

Claudio Ranieri and strategic changes

His reception was rather sceptical, also because of the recent and unsuccessful experience with the Greek national team, with his name considered one of the most likely to be sacked in the short term and the victory of the Premier League quoted by the bookmakers at 5000:1 (even less likely than the discovery of the Loch Ness monster, the landing of aliens on Earth and the facts that Elvis Presley is still alive, that Kim Kardashian is elected president of the United States or that Bono of U2 is appointed pope).

But the Italian manager, appointed in the summer of 2015, did bring international experience and a reputation for tactical acumen. His leadership played a pivotal role in galvanizing the team and implementing a successful strategy, which was mostly based on building a strong team ethos, with every player contributing to the collective effort, and a very swift and aggressive counter-attack strategy, utilizing their pace and agility to exploit their opponents' defensive vulnerabilities.

As we may notice from the above graph, counterattacks have been a dominant strategy for Leicester City during the season. Surely some players were fundamental in achieving that, such as Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, being extremely prolific in goals and getting to top level numbers. Consequently to this aggressive playstyle, Leicester City also topped by far the leaderboard on penalty goals (10), with the second being Watford at only 6!.

Leicester City was not just forward aggression, since we should not underestimate its strong midfield core, being the best filter in the league when it came to deny opponent attacks. Among all, surely N'Golo Kantè emerged from the season as one of the best and most wanted midfielders in the world.

Finally, also keeper Kaspar Schmeichel provided lots of security in the back, maintaining a total of 15 clean sheets (4th) and having also a very high number of blocks (3rd) while not missing a minute in the Premier League that season.

The other teams

As we reflect on the standings, Leicester City's title win in the 2015-2016 season was indeed impressive, with the team maintaining a strong lead throughout the campaign. However, if we analyze the data, it becomes clear that the larger clubs were only temporarily unable to keep pace with Leicester's momentum. This temporary setback for the “Big Six” was evident in the following season, where Leicester struggled to replicate their success.