For Leicester City’s Achievements To Go Unrewarded Feels Unjust, If Inevitable

With the Premier League on hiatus until April 4^th at the earliest due to the coronavirus outbreak uncertainty remains as to what will become of the 2019/20 season.

This Thursday an emergency meeting involving representatives of every top flight club will likely make the situation clearer but until then the three most feasible options have been assimilated and robustly debated throughout the media and social media alike.

Of these three options the possibility of prematurely freezing the league table had an early groundswell of support honoring as it would Liverpool with their first Premier League title. The Reds are presently 25 points ahead of second placed Manchester City and were within touching distance of the finish tape after dominating their peers every step of the way since August.

Though rivalry is understandably coloring the opinion of some it is generally felt that it would be immensely unfair to deprive the Merseyside giants of an achievement they have all-but-rubberstamped. This particular recourse would address that.  

Closer inspection of this model however has revealed all manner of seemingly insurmountable complications elsewhere, not least that regarding the season complete would relegate Aston Villa to the Championship: a club that currently have a game in hand that, if won, would haul them out of the danger zone. There is also the small matter of a fiercely competed top four fight still to be resolved.

The second option is unique in that circumstances dictate rather than choice because surely it is the ideal wish of everybody that this truncated campaign can be concluded at a later date if possible. With the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring coronavirus a pandemic this week however, and with the state of affairs worsening daily, it is becoming ever more difficult to affix any certainty to months ahead that are decidedly undetermined.

To offer a pertinent example, UEFA are set to propose this week via video conference the postponement of EURO 2020 and it’s within this vacuum that those rooting for option two hope that remaining Premier League fixtures can be played. Yet the very same reason the major tournament will not be held is the reason this is almost inconceivable.

Which leads us to the final option and on this we will concentrate, and not just because it is by far the most plausible.

According to Sky Sports a senior source at a Premier League club believes there is a 75 per cent chance this season will not be completed while West Ham United’s vice-chair Karren Brady made the headlines at the weekend insisting the “only fair and reasonable thing to do is declare the whole season null and void”. FA chairman Greg Clarke meanwhile has revealed that he is broadly of the same opinion, expecting the domestic season to be annulled.

Looking beyond the actual decision-makers it is a course of action that has been greeted with a notable amount of backing from supporters who frankly have little appetite for footballing melodrama while an infinitely more pressing concern is concerning them and we should not be surprised if Thursday’s emergency meeting indeed confines this season to the scrapheap. There is no perfect solution. This one feels the least unfair.

Should this be imminently confirmed there will no doubt be considerable attention placed on Liverpool’s reaction with accompanying sympathy from some quarters. After all, as previously mentioned, Jurgen Klopp’s side have enjoyed a formidably brilliant season, one that is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon and to have this go unrewarded is cruel misfortune in the extreme.

Yet they will not be alone in having a very special few months wiped out by external forces and that is something that should not be over-looked.

Until the outbreak of the virus gathered apace Leicester City were on course to post their second best season since 1929. It was seven months of heightened and sustained excellence that saw the Foxes challenge at the top before nestling into a third spot that would have comfortably secured them Champions League football; a rare feat not anticipated by a great many at the season’s unveiling.

It was a fantastical campaign that brought them a club record eight straight Premier League wins and a record-equaling 9-0 thrashing of Southampton that thoroughly deserves to be archived for future generations. It was a remarkable three-quarters of a season all told, one propagated by a coach in Brendan Rodgers who first sculpted, then orchestrated a group of players to excel on a weekly basis; a sum greater than its parts.

For all this to now count for nothing; for Leicester’s sublime contribution to 2019/20 to be deleted from the database, is nothing short of unjust.

That is stated whilst fully acknowledging that recent events make this injustice unavoidable, and there is an acceptance too that football right now pales to other matters that ultimately render it redundant.

But should the announcement come this week that the most recent chapter in the history books will forever remain blank let’s please remember that it is not only Liverpool who can legitimately feel hard done by. Leicester flew high, fast and proud, showing other clubs of their rank the way.

In memory at least that deserves to be chronicled and always and properly celebrated.