Manchester United’s Old Trafford bore draws sum up drab Premier League season
The action has been in the Champions League where Juventus, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico, Bayern Munich and even Monaco and dear old Leicester have dazzled far more than the richest league in the world
A season is along time in football. This time last year Leicester were about to be crowned improbable English Premier League champions, thanks to a tenacious team spirit and the evident weakness of the big six clubs.
Perhaps 2015-16 was a freak season, a period in which the romance of the game – declared long dead because of the billions of dollars swooshing around the boardrooms – was defiantly resurrected by a motley team that made up the Foxes under Claudio Ranieri.
Leicester’s triumph was one of team and supporter spirit thumb-nosing the corporation big spenders. Few believed the club could retain the title or that a team of similar, modest wallet would emulate them.
Indeed, it was hoped the top six clubs – with all their stars and all the money and global fans – would have been shamed by their woeful showing last year, humiliated as they were by lowly Leicester, that they would come out, with all guns blazing.
But no, far from it. This season has failed to fire the imagination. The only surprise, and a mild one at that, is that Chelsea, under master tactician Antonio Conte, have repaid their supporters for finishing a disgraceful 10th in 2015-16.
