{"id":268,"date":"2016-04-05T13:37:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T04:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/?p=268"},"modified":"2016-05-02T23:22:36","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T14:22:36","slug":"%e3%83%ac%e3%82%b9%e3%82%bf%e3%83%bc%e3%80%81%e3%83%81%e3%83%a3%e3%83%b3%e3%83%94%e3%82%aa%e3%83%b3%e3%81%ae%e9%a2%a8%e6%a0%bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/blog\/268.html","title":{"rendered":"Champion Form"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<h3 id=\"blogSingleTitle\">Champion Form<\/h3>\n<p class=\"uptime\">2016.04.05<\/p>\n<p>Leicester look like champions.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t mean that they have so many points with so few games to go that I expect they will win. I mean they have the hallmarks of a champion team.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"listSentence\">\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">They are \u201cclosers\u201d.<\/span> They are squeezing the life out of the season. They have picked up 16 out of a possible 18 points just at the stage when their rivals are praying for them to lose a couple of games.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">They can grind out wins.<\/span> They have won five of their last six games 1-0, which is the most \u201cefficient\u201d scoreline. (Arsenal under George Graham were famous for winning 1-0 but one day people may associate it with Leicester 2016.)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">They have \u201cbouncebackability\u201d.<\/span> If Leicester were going to crumble, it was after Valentine\u2019s Day when they lost \u2013 heartbreakingly \u2013 to Arsenal with a goal in the 96th minute. Instead, they haven\u2019t lost since.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">They look in control.<\/span> They haven\u2019t just not lost in the six games since Arsenal: they didn\u2019t lose in the previous seven in the Premier League. So, the only game they lost in 14 was the one they played with ten men for the last 40 minutes. So it barely even qualifies as a blip.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">They are \u201cstingy\u201d.<\/span> They have conceded seven goals in the league since Christmas (15 games).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">Someone comes through for them.<\/span> Earlier in the season, Jamie Vardy seemed to be the secret to Leicester\u2019s success. He scored in 11 consecutive games (a Premier League record). But Mahrez has also scored 16 this season (four more than Arsenal\u2019s top scorer). In the famous victory over Manchester City, veteran defender Huth scored two. In the last 1-0 win over Southampton, the captain Morgan scored his first goal of the season. Against Newcastle, it was Okazaki.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">They are strong all over the pitch.<\/span> Schmeichel has made some crucial saves, Kante is one of the pundits\u2019 favourites, Drinkwater has earned an England call-up...<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"listTitle\">Their rivals are worse than them.<\/span> It may seem obvious to say but none of the usual suspects have been good this season. Manchester City have been inconsistent, Manchester United and Chelsea have been surprisingly poor and Arsenal blew their chance. Spurs have had their best season in ages... and are seven points behind.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Apart from that, I am genuinely mystified at what makes Leicester so good.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Champion Form 2016.04.05 Leicester look like champions. I don\u2019t mean that they have so many points with so few games to go that I expect they will win. I mean they have the hallmarks of a champion team. They are \u201cclosers\u201d. They are squeezing the life out of the season. They have picked up 16 out of a possible 18 points just at the stage when their rivals are praying for them to lose a couple of games. They can grind out wins. They have won five of their last six games 1-0, which is the most \u201cefficient\u201d scoreline. (Arsenal under George Graham were famous for winning 1-0 but one day people may associate it with Leicester 2016.) They have[\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colinjoyce","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sankenbook.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}