WHAT a difference a pandemic makes. Before coronavirus forced the football world into shutdown, Leicester City were riding high, third in the Premier League with an eight-point cushion to Manchester United in fifth. Champions League qualification looked a formality.
United, on the other hand, faced an uphill struggle for a top-four spot. Despite having embarked upon a five-game unbeaten run in the league – inspired by Bruno Fernandes’ arrival from Sporting CP in January – Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side were still three points behind fourth-placed Chelsea, with Sheffield United and Wolves breathing down their neck.
Four and a half months on, though, with the season finally approaching its belated crescendo, Leicester will host United on the final day of the 2019-20 Premier League campaign with the two teams separated by just a single point – the home side having slipped to fifth and their visitors up to third – and goal difference dead even. One game to settle the Champions League fate of both clubs.
Leicester have punched above their weight for much of the season, spearheaded by Jamie Vardy, the league’s top scorer with 23 goals. Upsetting the natural order of the Premier League’s Big Six in only slightly less dramatic fashion than their miracle title of 2014-15, manager Brendan Rodgers was rightly being lavished with praise; there was debate over where Northern Irishman ranked among the top flight’s best tacticians, whether Gareth Southgate ought to talk Vardy out of international retirement and what a masterstroke the Foxes had pulled in selling Harry Maguire to United for £80m the previous summer, only to seemingly upgrade with a player they already had waiting in the wings, Caglar Soyuncu.
Now, while Vardy is still scoring reliably, a run of just three wins from their last 16 all-competitions games has sparked talk of Rodgers’ flaws and lessons unlearned from his Liverpool demise, and Soyuncu is suspended for the biggest game of Leicester’s season following a petulant red card in a humiliating 4-1 defeat to lowly Bournemouth.
Conversely, United had been the Premier League’s most impressive team since the restart, extending their unbeaten streak to 19 games in all competitions before a 3-1 FA Cup semi-final loss to Chelsea at Wembley last weekend. Fernandes, averaging a goal or assist every 81 minutes, has continued to play a transformative role in a United frontline looking fearsome thanks to the slick combination play and speed of Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and 18-year-old sensation Mason Greenwood.
United, on the evidence of recent performances, travel to the King Power Stadium with the peak of their form in the rear-view mirror, however. In a 1-1 draw against West Ham at Old Trafford on Wednesday evening, United’s leaden-legged display was that of a side pushed beyond its limits in recent weeks. They had appeared similarly lethargic for spells in their recent draw with Southampton and win over Crystal Palace.
With little quality beyond his starting XI, Solskjaer has chosen to rotate his lineup sparingly since football returned last month. Such continuity certainly aided their impressive run, but it seems to have come at the cost of a limp toward the finish line. Indeed, both Leicester and United have won just once in their last four games.
That wasn't the best but there have been plenty of times this season when Solskjaer would have bitten your hand off if you offered a draw on the last draw day against Leicester to qualify for the Champions League. Just have to get over the line.
— Rob Dawson (@RobDawsonESPN) July 22, 2020
"When we started after the lockdown we had to go for it,” Solskjaer admitted after seeing his side draw with West Ham. “We had to go for goal difference, we had to go for points, and the effort has been fantastic and the results have been fantastic.
"Of course, you would like to win against Southampton, you concede in the last second, and today you concede in the last second of the first-half. But we've given ourselves a fantastic opportunity and a great starting point for Sunday."
It’s not quite the age-old hypothetical quandary of the immovable object versus the irresistible force, but Sunday’s King Power showdown pits the Premier League’s third-highest scorers this season against the division’s third-meanest defence. Only champions Liverpool and Manchester City can better Leicester’s haul of 67 goals, while United, despite appearing top-heavy on paper, are one of only three team’s averaging below one goal conceded per game.
“It will be absolutely perfect. It will be all in. The players have been fantastic, and we’ve got one last opportunity,” was Rodgers’ optimistic spin on the winner-takes-all finale against United following Leicester’s 3-0 defeat to Tottenham last weekend. “Whatever the result was today, we needed a result next week.
"We need to draw on everything. For media and telly and everything, it's an incredible turn-out that that's the last game with so much on it.”
At various stages of this most unusual, interrupted season, both Leicester and United could have laid claim to being comfortably the Premier League’s third-best team. As such, they’d have hoped their Champions League qualification would have been wrapped up before the campaign’s final game.
But if you’d have offered this exact scenario – their Champions League destiny in the balance of one final game – to Leicester before the season began, or to United when they were 14th in October, both Rodgers and Solskjaer would have giddily accepted. Now, here they are, the final thrill of a roller-coaster season.
