Ranieri’s Foxes test blazing form into Manchester United meeting

By on November 27, 2015

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;”

So begins If, Rudyard Kipling’s late-nineteenth century poem. Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri told The Guardian that he is reminded of the poem every day as his side continue their hot streak on top of the Premier League table. They’re sitting on twenty-eight points, a mark achieved last season not until April – with five wins in their last six matches.

Back in September, I wrote about Leicester as they began to pick up form, and how they would rely on unwavering passion to keep them from looking down and falling from their heights; but I now realize it’s not a blind passion that is carrying this team — it’s a mindful, perceptive decision by Ranieri to maintain the focus of his players and keep them on their toes, through the hills and valleys of a season in England’s top division.

“I ask my players: ‘We have to play like we are desperate – not every match, every second,’” Ranieri said in any interview with The Guardian’s Amy Lawrence. “I want this philosophy. The day my players relax I get crazy. They know that. I think I am a nice man but also I am demanding. That is our way. If we slow down, it’s not Leicester, it’s another team.”

This mentality has terrorized the Premier League’s cellar dwellers in the early months of the season, but Leicester are yet to pick up any points on the big boys. Their fortunes will change as the holidays herald a string of tough matches for Raneiri’s men (they face Everton, Swansea City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City in December), beginning with Manchester United this weekend. Yet Leicester won’t shy away from the bright, attacking football that they have excelled at so far this season — even in the darker depths that winter promises.

Their attitude is the perfect counterpoint to that of Manchester United, who have been jinxed with a bout of slow, sluggish form up front. Louis van Gaal’s men have scored just six goals in their last eight matches in all competitions and the boos were audible inside Old Trafford after their scoreless draw with PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League on Wednesday.

A win would see them leapfrog Leicester to go top of the table, a position they only find themselves in do to the inconsistency of Manchester City, who let up a chance to retake the reigns of the league after a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of Liverpool last weekend.

United are likely to feature a 4-2-3-1 with Anthony Martial up top, given Van Gaal ruled out a potential return to the forward role for Wayne Rooney, who will likely slide into an attacking midfield role. Jesse Ligard’s form has warranted an extended run on the right wing ahead of Juan Mata and Ashley Young, although either of the latter two players could replace a lethargic Memphis Depay on the left wing. Marouane Fellaini, Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger are their available options in the middle, although Van Gaal claims that Fellaini is only part of a Plan B approach is United are chasing games and wish to have a larger aerial threat. It’s an option Van Gaal has found himself using all too often, though.

At the back, Jamie Vardy will certainly give United’s back-line a test and another goal would take his consecutive league scoring streak up to eleven matches, an all-time league record, and past Ruud van Nistelrooy’s two ten-match goalscoring streaks. Vardy, Ranieri, and Leicester will remember the warnings in If, however.

“If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,” Kipling continues in his famous poem,” Yours is the world and everything that’s in it.”

Homepage photo credit: Matt Janzer, via Flickr

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.