Home   >   Previews   >   Ranieri calm about title race ahead of Sunderland matchup

Ranieri calm about title race ahead of Sunderland matchup

By on April 8, 2016

Claudio Ranieri remains calm about Leicester City’s Premier League title hopes. In his press conference ahead of the Foxes’ meeting with Sunderland on Sunday, the Italian manager said their current focus is on Champions League, and only once they have achieved certain qualification in three or four weeks will they turn their heads to the title race.

More likely, however, Leicester will be close to synching it by then. They’re seven glorious points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur atop the league table and although the height might be dizzying for another team on the footstep of winning their first ever Premier League title, Leicester’s feet remain firmly on the ground. Dreaming, as Ranieri has constantly said whenever airing a question about the title race, is for the fans. His team will always keep their tunnel-like focus on the next game.

“Everyone is looking at what happens in the last six matches. Me too, I am very curious, but we have to wait,” he said, per Sky Sports.

“There are a lot of people pushing behind us and that’s important but it’s important to keep our feet on the ground.

“What we do is important, before thinking about everything, then we can check the table. I’ll repeat to my players it’s important what we do.”

First his mantra was forty-points, which took Leicester just twenty weeks into the season to pass, although two months later, he still expresses his happiness at avoiding relegation. They’re already on sixty-nine points, just eleven away from clinching the title with six games to go.

Tottenham and Arsenal are close on their tails but Leicester have been pulling away, not losing ground in recent weeks. They’ve pulled a number of gritty, 1-0 results away from Watford, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and Southampton in recent weeks and at ever venue they’ve travelled to, they have received a warm reception. At Palace, Ranieri was greeted with a round of applause.

Their meeting with Sunderland will be as hotly contested as a Premier League match can get, with Sunderland desperately trying to drag themselves out of the bottom three.

“Sunderland are desperate and it will be a big battle. Sometimes there is pretty football but I am waiting for a battle,” said Ranieri.

The Black Cats have drawn each of their last four matches and Leicester would do just fine with a tie, but considering they have Manchester United, Everton and Chelsea left to play in a tough run-in, Ranieri won’t want to take his chances — not that a man of such charisma and spirit would ever entertain the idea of settling for a draw in these circumstances.

They’ll be out to impose themselves on the title race once again and with Arsenal facing the hot West Ham and Spurs taking on Manchester United later in the day, it will be another opportunity for Leicester to pull further ahead.

Leicester’s rise has come to engulf millions of football fans around the world and every middle-sized Premier League club, like Crystal Palace, who see a little bit of themselves in Ranieri’s men. But Ranieri himself has refused to get swept away in the euphoria and that is what sets Leicester apart.

Homepage photo credit: Matt Neale from UK (Walkers Stadium Uploaded by NotFromUtrecht) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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.