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Now That What We Won't Have That Pesky Champions League To Distract Us...

One of the biggest questions facing Leicester City last summer was "Will playing in the Champions League damage the team's fortunes in the league?" A year later, we know the answer to that question (spoiler alert: It's "yes" but maybe not in the way you're expecting), but does knowing that answer tell us anything about what we can expect this year?

Fatigue? What Fatigue?

Conventional wisdom said that Leicester would struggle with the expanded schedule. The team's dependence on a regular starting XI would be put them at a disadvantage as the fixtures piled up. Mid-week games would make for tired, heavy legs, especially for a team as old as the Foxes are.

If the conventional wisdom was correct, then you'd expect Leicester to struggle when playing with less than a week's rest. In all competitions, Leicester played 32 times with 4 or fewer days between matches. They managed a paltry 1.375 points per game from those matches (I'm counting wins in cup matches and fancy European tournaments as three points).

How does that compare to their record when playing with 5 or more days of rest? Leicester averaged 1.12 points per game when well-rested. That doesn't make much sense, does it? If playing additional matches hurt the club, you'd expect that to show up when the fixtures piled up and that simply didn't happen. I don't have an explanation for it, but it blows the theory that short rest cost us points right out of the water.

Stage Fright

Instead, the biggest impact of playing in the Champions League showed up in the league match prior to their games in Europe. In the ten league matches immediately before playing in the Champions League, Leicester City bagged a mere 5 points, just a half a point per game. It wasn't a matter of bad luck, either. The Foxes were outscored 25-12 in these fixtures. Regardless of whether it was down to playing reserves to save the top players for Europe, or simply being distracted by the big stage, or any other reason you might think of, Leicester were clearly at their worst right before playing in Europe.

Look at it this way: Would you have been reasonably satisfied with finishing 8th on the table? I wouldn't have been thrilled, but an 8th place finish would equal our second-best in the Premier League, matching Martin O'Neill's best year. If Leicester had managed one measly point per match in the games before European action, we'd have be 8th on the table.

I know, I know, you can cherry-pick these kind of hypothetical situations to come up with almost any result. I'm not saying we deserved to finish 8th (and if you saw those matches prior to Champions League play, you wouldn't either); I'm just saying that, for whatever reason, we were very, very poor in those ten league matches.

Crocked Foxes

You might expect that, by playing more games more frequently, players might be more susceptible to getting hurt. In this case, your expectation is spot-on. An obvious difference between last season and our championship year (aside from, you know, not winning another championship) is our key players didn't start nearly as many matches as the year before.

Continuity was an enormous factor in winning the title. Six players started 35 or more matches. Even N'Golo Kante, Danny Simpson, and Christian Fuchs, who weren't first choice at the start of the year, managed to start 30 or more games each. Playing the same XI, week in, week out, allowed the team to gel in a way you just don't see with squad rotation.

I think everyone knew we wouldn't have that same good fortune again and, as is often the case, everyone was right. Leaving out the revolving door in the central midfield alongside Danny Drinkwater, the regular lineup at the other ten positions started only 303 games. Only Christian Fuchs started 35 league contests. In contrast, those same ten players started 340 times the year before, almost a full year's worth of games difference.

In theory, the added depth courtesy of our three record signings would have mitigated the impact of the tighter schedule and additional injuries. If you're reading this, I expect that you know it turned out.

Conclusion

By examining whether or not playing in the Champions League adversely affected Leicester City's league campaign, I understand that I'm answering a question to which everyone already instinctively knows the answer. I always like a little evidence to go with my instincts, and it looks like the numbers agree. There were other problems as well, but playing in the Champions League demonstrably hurt us in the league.

What does that mean for the coming season? If last year's trends tell us anything, we'll have fewer abject performances. Unfortunately, we won't have any glorious nights in Spain, either.


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