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Brendan Rodgers believes his Leicester City side can “break the Premier League hierarchy” after moving one point behind leaders Liverpool.
Sunday’s 2-1 victory at Newcastle lifted the Foxes to third as the season nears its halfway point.
The Foxes, unlikely champions in 2015-16, are the only club outside the ‘Big Six’ to win the league since 1995.
“We want to be a team that, year after year, can achieve European football,” Rodgers said.
“Our job is, can we upset the hierarchy? It may not be financially, we don’t have the finances to go and get that 70 million pound, 80 million, 90 million pound player, but we can do it in football.”
Leicester held the Champions League spots for most of the 2019-20 campaign and was third when the season was called off in March, but faded after the restart to finish fifth.
“My ambition is to go back to Europe and for us to progress,” added Rodgers, whose team topped his Europa League group to reach 32.
“The good thing is that our best players are getting back into shape and that’s exciting for us in the second half of the season.”
The closest title race in Premier League history?
Liverpool travel to Southampton on Monday, with just seven points separating the leaders of West Ham, who are ranked 10th, in what appears to be the most open title race in recent memory.
That honor previously belonged to Leicester’s title win five seasons ago, but even then the gap between top and 10th at this stage of the campaign was 12 points.
By comparison, Liverpool held a whopping 27-point lead over the team in 10th place after 16 games last season, as did Manchester City at a similar juncture in 2017-18.
While logic and experience would suggest that some of the top-half teams will lose a beat as 2021 progresses, the kind of two-horse title race we’ve seen in recent years seems like an unlikely prospect.
The table is somewhat skewed by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, with Manchester City and Aston Villa, for example, having two games in hand against third-placed Leicester, among others.
With more postponements likely in the coming weeks, that imbalance likely won’t change anytime soon, lending another fascinating intangible to an already intriguing title battle.
Newcastle ‘felt the force of the upper side’ – Maddison
Leicester was back in full force for their trip to Tyneside when Rodgers welcomed James Maddison and Timothy Castagne from injury, as well as returned Jamie Vardy and Youri Tielemans to their XI.
The latter pair had come off the bench to help salvage a hardly deserved 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace, but, returning to virtually a full complement, Leicester looked back at its best for spells at St James’ Park.
The quality of the Foxes was evident in the first two attempts, Maddison lunged at Vardy’s kick and Tielemans took a pass from Marc Albrighton on his stride to launch home from 20 yards.
“We are playing with intensity and a bit of arrogance. Newcastle felt the full force of a top Premier League team,” said lively England midfielder Maddison.
His performance impressed Radio 5 Live pundit and Derby defender Curtis Davies, who spent a brief stint on loan at Leicester 10 years ago.
“The teams at the top play arrogantly. We have seen against Tottenham and Manchester City, that Leicester have gone head-to-head and have earned points,” Davies said.
“Rodgers is toying with them to say ‘we’re in this title race,’ so why not give it a try? If you get your players to believe, who knows where they might go?”
Carroll wins the battle but the foxes win the war
Andy Carroll’s volley for Newcastle caused some nerves in Leicester as the Magpies pressed for an unlikely point, but the Foxes held out for a seventh win in nine road games this season.
That’s the best away record in the top flight and Rodgers was happy to see his team’s mettle put to the test.
“Big Andy comes in and the game becomes a war, and we have to show ourselves a different side and I think we did really well,” said the Northern Irishman.
Newcastle had done Leicester a favor by holding Liverpool to a goalless draw four days earlier, but are now without a win in five, although they are still eight points from the relegation zone.
Carroll had been unable to find the net in 32 appearances, most of them from the substitute bench, since the former England player rejoined his childhood club Newcastle from West Ham in the summer of 2019.
“He’s been a little frustrated because he hasn’t been on the team, but he’s come in and reminded us what he can do,” Magpies boss Steve Bruce said.
