Then there’s Arsenal, a regular in the top four but a team that so often flatters to deceive when the championship trophy looks to be in sight. “We must be smarter”, Ranieri said.
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Never have titleholders’ ambitions appeared to be so low.
Commenting ahead of the start of the Premier League 2016/17 season, Philip Bowcock, Interim CEO of William Hill, stated: “We’ve now got seven teams with odds of 1,000-1”.
Showing a remarkable refusal to crack under pressure despite their lack of big-match experience, Leicester finished a staggering 10 points clear of second placed Arsenal.
But it won’t be with the same cast.
Throw in Conte and the ubiquitous Kante following his departure from Leicester for $40 million and Chelsea has all the ingredients of a title victor, with its motivation rebooted.
If they are to meet these demands, it is vital that the Foxes keep hold of their star players. Vardy eventually signed a new deal but doubts remain about whether Mahrez will be at Leicester by the end of the transfer window on August 31, with the winger heavily linked with Arsenal.
There were six games classified Category C (Increased Risk) – the highest risk category – during the 2015-16 season.
Vardy could be joined in attack by new signing Ahmed Musa in Saturday’s Premier League opener against newly promoted Hull City and the Nigeria global, signed from CSKA Moscow, made a favourable early impression with Leicester fans by scoring an impressive double in the 4-2 friendly defeat to Barcelona.
“Everything’s different now, ” Ranieri said. “They are going insane now, they want to kill now”.
Leicester will be fully aware of the challenges that face them, with Champions League, the Premier League and cup competitions all to negotiate this time around.
“But there are big teams now who last season, I don’t know why, made mistakes”.
Ranieri is also wary of the added commitments on his Leicester squad playing in Europe this season.
Leicester was beaten 2-1 by Manchester United in the Community Shield last Sunday but has largely kept its title-winning squad intact, with N’Golo Kante’s departure to Chelsea the only significant loss to a group bolstered by the signings of Ahmed Musa, Nampalys Mendy, Ron-Robert Zieler, Luis Hernandez and Bartosz Kapustka.
Will the world’s most expensive player make his debut against Bournemouth? What Leicester did previous year has given other clubs belief that – if they go about things in the right way – they can compete and have success. The team spirit is strong, the King Power stadium is a tough place to visit, and Leicester has the ideal tactics for winning away games.
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Was this Vardy’s best goal from last season? You want to kill the opponent and be aggressive but it is hard to recharge the batteries for a team that is playing in it for the first time. It opens with a trip to Hull on Saturday. Pep again won the league in his first season at Bayern in 13/14, they both won the league in 14/15, Mour’s first season back at Chelsea, and Guardiola won it again last season.
