When they went down, it almost seemed they were too good to lose their top flight status.
Just how did the ‘miracle’ champions of 2016 and the FA Cup winners of 2021 slip out of the Premier League.
Truth is, they recovered from a lousy start, then the World Cup came along and, after another dismal run, woke up too late.
Well, Leicester City are back at the first time of asking with the Championship trophy already secured for good measure – all with their own comic book hero in the bargain playing a key role in the triumph.
It was a case of the old and the new securing top spot earlier this week as Jamie Vardy built the platform for the title-clinching victory at Preston before academy graduate Kasey McAteer added the third.
Vardy is now 37 and, while he remains an influential figure both in the dressing room and on the field, his contract expires shortly.
Yet as his manager Enzo Maresca said the other day: ‘My feeling is he is going to stay. Jamie Vardy is Leicester, Jamie Vardy has always scored goals and even when he is 45 years old he will score goals. Goals are in his blood.’
It’s hard to disagree with such a sentiment.
One more goal on Saturday could be enough to ensure the Fantastic Foxes finish on a magnificent 100 points.
If Maresca was a managerial punt which has paid off, the one at Ipswich Town was a bigger gamble and a bigger task.
Now the side from Portman Road are within touching distance of returning to the Promised Land for the first time since 2002.
When Kieran McKenna was appointed by Ipswich in December 2021 after leaving his position as assistant to recently departed Ole Gunnar Solskjær at Manchester United, he took charge of a team that was stuck in the middle of League One and had just been knocked out of the FA Cup.
On Saturday, Ipswich host a dire Huddersfield Town side that are all but relegated and whose fans may take some modicum of cheer from the fact a draw would end the automatic promotion hopes of their bitter Yorkshire rivals Leeds United.
The Suffolk club could certainly do without recent speculation linking McKenna with the Brighton job should Roberto De Zerbi quit this summer.
One suspects McKenna will stay loyal to those at Portman Road, a ground which remains one of English football’s most distinctive venues.
A giant image of Sir Bobby Robson gazes down from the stadium’s north-east corner. Robson and Sir Alf Ramsey, both immortalised in bronze a matter of yards away, made Ipswich an internationally known name in the second half of the last century.
If their 2024 vintage get over the line, there may be calls for a third manager’s likeness to join them.
McKenna has certainly performed quite a feat in guiding Ipswich from League One, where they had lingered for four years, straight to the sharp end of a brutal Championship promotion fight.
Barely any outsiders expected them to last the course in an automatic promotion race against Leicester, Leeds and, until recently, Southampton, all of whom could fuel their campaigns with Premier League resources.
The SBOTOP Championship betting odds expect them to secure one more set of Championship highlights on Saturday – that would mean back-to-back promotions and the ‘Tractor Boys’ would become the first team since the Saints in 2011 and 2012 to win successive promotions to the Premier League from League One.
The only team who can stop them from gaining automatic promotion, Leeds, may feel that having already earned 90 points they have done enough to seal a top two spot.
Relegation did not seem on the cards when they turned on the style to beat Chelsea convincingly early on in last season’s Premier League.
What followed was three different managers.
Jesse Marsch was always a risk. But to sack him in February and then take weeks to replace him appeared at the time to be an error.
Javi Gracia’s immediate positive impact didn’t last too long and he seemed an odd choice.
By the time Sam Allardyce was given the nod, the die was almost cast – had he been hired a few weeks earlier, they probably would have survived.
At least the appointment of Daniel Farke last July seemed a sensible one and, should they miss out on the top two, Leeds will be favourites to bounce back via the play-offs.
Of course, Southampton (also relegated from the top flight last term), and two from Norwich, West Brom or Hull (all in the Premier League fairly recently), will have something to say about that!
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