Neil Humphreys: Foxes will not fail
Even if they lose to United on Sunday, trust Chelsea to do them a favour against Spurs
They are beginning to sound like crackpots now, the kind of folks who gather with climate-change deniers to insist the world is flat.
Leicester City will not win the title, they cry, before moving on to explain that the Moon Landing was faked and Elvis lives in a local supermarket.
Healthy scepticism is one thing, but it's beginning to sound like dogma.
It was indeed once foolish to back the Foxes. Now it's foolish not to.
In a worst-case scenario, Leicester require a win and two draws from their last three games and the title race gets the ending that everyone wants beyond White Hart Lane and those insufferable types who waffle on about the ball being round.
The ball is round. Leicester need just five points. Only three matches remain. Do you need me to draw you a picture?
Ah, but wait. The Theatre of Dreams beckons on Sunday, when Wayne Rooney and company will behave like simian litterbugs and leave banana skins everywhere.
Let's assume that the Manchester United who turn up to face the Foxes aren't the club that needed a couple of kids to see off a woeful Everton side in the FA Cup semi-finals last Saturday.
Or the club who were fortunate to beat West Ham in the quarter-finals. Or the club who have all season long displayed the kind of schizophrenia that would have both Jekyll and Hyde fleeing down Sir Alex Ferguson Way.
Then the Red Devils will surely, definitely, most certainly beat the title contenders. But why exactly?
There is still an underlying, rather patronising, assumption that Leicester must fall at Old Trafford, as if it's the natural way of things, an occasion to bring balance to the force.
But such a standpoint doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Leicester have gone to Manchester City, Tottenham and West Ham and beaten them all. They drew with United in their previous encounter.
They have lost only three league games all season, but the Foxes are expected to falter at Old Trafford, where Louis van Gaal has made the Nutty Professor look like the Dalai Lama.
A club with one league defeat in 2016 and propelled by the kind of adrenalin rush beyond the comprehension of most professional sportspeople and sports scientists, let alone Joe Public, now cannot win two of their last three games?
To a point, the lingering negativity is understandable.
The Foxes do not compute. They are forcing conventional minds to hang, as if the internal control-alt-delete buttons need to be pressed to wipe the screen and start again.
This is beyond our confused brains because there's no precedent.
In football terms, we are 19th-century academics struggling to accept the findings of some mad bearded bloke called Darwin who insists we're related to chimpanzees.
We just won't believe the evidence. How can we? It's Leicester City. There must be a wobble at some point. Even Barcelona stumbled in recent weeks.
But the Foxes haven't fallen off the title bandwagon, not really, not once.
Everyone knows the line-up. It's been unchanged 14 times this season. Everyone knows the retro formation and those counter-attacking surges, like greyhounds being released from race traps.
But their fantastic form has endured for 13 miraculous months, both with Jamie Vardy and now without him.
And yet, we're supposed to reject such cast-iron evidence and cling to the "world is flat" theory that they're going to collapse in the last three games.
That's more ridiculous than anything that the Foxes are currently achieving.
Even if the Leicester deniers are given the benefit of the doubt and the Foxes lose at Old Trafford, their argument assumes that Tottenham will win every game.
A very particular group of people with vested interests utterly reject that theory.
As Chelsea defeated Bournemouth 4-1, their supporters sang: "You'd better beat f****** Tottenham!"
A video of the chant was shared on Instagram. John Terry liked the video.
Never underestimate the animosity between Chelsea and Tottenham. The hatred runs deep.
The Blues have already displayed their exasperating tendency of raising their game when the mood takes them. Watch them rise against Spurs.
When they face Leicester a fortnight later, watch them reach out for the sun loungers and dream of a distant beach.
Once again, Chelsea will help determine the final destination of the Premier League trophy.
It's heading to Leicester.
Never mind the negativity. Forget the fairy tale. Check the evidence. The Foxes' title has been 13 months in the making.
“I talked to my players before the match and I said we had a dream so far, now make a dream reality. Now there are only three matches... we play with our hearts and it’s difficult to beat those who play with the heart and soul.”
— Claudio Ranieri, wanting the Foxes to finish the job after they were rated 5,000-1 to win the title at the start of the season
“There isn’t revenge, I am the same man. If I was stupid at that time, I am stupid now. I never think the fans were negative with me, never. (Only) some of you, some of my sharks (journalists).”
— Ranieri, insisting he is not out for revenge after being tipped to be one of the first managers to be sacked after he replaced Nigel Pe
REMAINING FIXTURES
LEICESTER
Sunday: Man United (Away)
May 8: Everton (Home)
May 15: Chelsea (A)
TOTTENHAM
This morning: West Brom (H)
May 3: Chelsea (A)
May 8: Southampton (H)
May 15: Newcastle (A)
'No secret to our success'
Leicester City's Thai vice-chairman insisted there was no secret to their miraculous rise, after they inched closer to a previously unthinkable English Premier League title.
Hundreds of blue-shirted Thai fans watched Leicester's 4-0 win over Swansea City "live" on big screens late into the night on Sunday at an outdoor venue in Bangkok, as the Foxes opened up an eight-point lead at the top of the table.
After the match, Aiyawatt "Top" Srivaddhanaprabha (above), who is also chief executive of Thailand's King Power duty-free empire, said Leicester's rise is "very good for football and for people who love sport".
"I play sport as well and I understand that inspiration from (striker Jamie) Vardy, inspiration from Leicester has inspired everyone in the world," he said, in rare comments to media.
"We don't have a secret... the players are trying so hard and the spirit in the team is so good."
Top's publicity-shy father Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha owns the British club, but Top is hands on in running it as well as being the King Power CEO.
Leicester narrowly survived relegation only last season, but Claudio Ranieri's side have taken this season by storm with their high-energy, attack-minded approach.
Leicester's Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez became the first African to be named England's Professional Footballer's Association Player of the Year on Sunday, while the prolific Vardy has netted 22 times.
The Foxes are now beginning to attract fans in Thailand, where EPL giants Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea traditionally command a strong following.
"We have 600 people come to celebrate and enjoy to watch Leicester, the team that maybe seven years ago no one knew," said Top.
"We try to tell Thais that you have your team and you have your second team as Leicester, so every time Leicester play, please support."
The Srivaddhanaprabha family have been widely praised for their judicious spending and appointments, which have taken Leicester to the top of the Premier League.
Top was a key voice in Ranieri's hiring and that of former boss Nigel Pearson, who left in the close-season despite a remarkable run of games to survive relegation.
The departure came shortly after a sex scandal involving three young fringe players - including Pearson's son - during a summer tour of Bangkok.
The mystery of Leicester's rise is whether it has been case of luck or canny judgment - or both - on the part of the owners.
Thai Buddhist monks certainly think good karma helps after they were drafted in to bless the King Power Stadium pitch and hand out lucky talismans to players.
Top said of his father: "This is one thing that in his dreams he wanted to own the club, and he said two or three years before that, he wanted the team to be a success in the Premier League, and now we are.
"As a son, I try to make the father and boss happy." - AFP.
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