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Five people who won the Premier League for Leicester City

Wayne Rooney

Captain, leader, wastrel. Wayne Rooney was quite the worst player for Manchester United for the first half of the season. He was slow, he couldn’t pass, he couldn’t shoot, and couldn’t control the ball. Everything that you’d want from an England and United captain - he wasn’t that. Everything you would want as an advertisement about what happens to you if you don’t get your five a day - he was certainly that. A shocking decline, stuck at the heart of a side in a depressing decline, he was undroppable, and failed to lead by example. To be the worst player in a side with Marouane Fellaini and Marcos Rojo in is quite some doing, but it is not something to be celebrated.

And yet, there he was. Keeping Anthony Martial away from his best position. Keeping Juan Mata on the sidelines. Putting Ander Herrera on the bench. When Leicester City come to be thankful for all the players who have made sure that they could celebrate their Premier League challenge, Rooney should be at the top of the list, with a special mention for Louis van Gaal and his notebook of doom.

Jose Mourinho

Striding around Stamford Bridge like a man who had decided he wanted **** everything up and everyone off, but who was fuming because he was forbidden to **** everything up and everyone off, Jose Mourinho succeeded in eventually ****ing everything up and everyone up. The Eva Carneiro episode was a sorry sight, a spectacular misjudgement which became an unpleasant legal case, was just one aspect. Blaming his players, giving his players too much time off, and failing to make the most of the young players available, all while being turned down when he asked for essential signings, they were just a few of his mis-steps.

To fall out with one or two players each season is inevitable, but to fall out with so many of them that when a quote emerges saying one of your players hates you so much he would rather lose than win for you, and there are several contenders, you know you’ve performed an absolute Philip Green of inspirational, sensitive man-management.

Manuel Pellegrini

When you’re given Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne to play alongside Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure, there’s not much more you need to do than get your defence organised, motivate the side to play close to their ability, and watch as you destroy the mediocrity before you. Granted, it might take something exceptional to win the league, if there’s a serious rival, and Champions League success might ultimately be too demanding a task to achieve, but it would be one of the most straightforward tasks in football to do the bare minimum.

Instead of tactics boards and motivational speeches, you get the sense that Pellegrini makes his squad watch blank, grey canvasses of different shades of grey instead of breaking down the tactical requirements of each match, and listen to Sunn O))) to improve their mood. While Pellegrini wasn’t helped by the announcement of Pep Guardiola’s arrival, an injury to De Bruyne, and the machinations of players’ agents, he highlighted just how limited a man he is. Leicester should be thankful he decided to extend his contract rather than jump off to a club where he was actually wanted.

Brendan Rodgers

Rodgers had nothing to do with it, but it’ll probably cheer him up to know that we’ve not completely forgotten about his existence yet. After all, he did - perhaps - show Leicester that if you attack the biggest clubs, and go for victory, you can exploit their relative lack of quality and ambition.

Perhaps there should also be a nod of appreciation in the direction of Jurgen Klopp from Leicester fans, too. As Rodgers would no doubt be willing to explain to broadsheet journalists, in much the same way as he did when he explained to them carefully how he invented the system of three men in a defence, if he had been given a chance to impose his next revolutionary tactical development, then he would confidently assure them that Liverpool would have won the league this year, and very possibly Euro 2016 if Spain had asked him.

Arsenal fans

Arsenal fans finally thought it might be worth, possibly, a bit, to some extent, saying to the club that they weren’t entirely satisfied with fourth place every year being regarded as some kind of fantastic achievement. However, the Arsenal fans are to blame for this, for indulging Arsene Wenger’s consistent failure to do more than this for in excess of a decade. In fact, the blame lies at least half with them for putting up with the notion that qualifying for European football and remaining financially solvent were reasonable ambitions. It is the Arsenal fans who defended Olivier Giroud as a world class striker who are to blame. It is the Arsenal fans who call Theo Walcott ‘Theo’ who are to blame.

The continued indulgence of Wenger’s specialism in failure meant that when they had everything ahead of them, a Manchester United side who were mediocre, a Manchester City side who could not be bothered to try until Pep Guardiola arrived, and a Chelsea side full of loathing, that they bottled it in the face of a title challenge from Leicester. Leicester!