Ah! So you do admit that it is unexpected that all of United, Chelsea, Arsenal, City and 'Pool have each had an indifferent season in the same season! You need to look at the definition of the word fluke. Leicester's season is the very epitome of that definition. I am sorry that some people find that difficult to grasp.
Great. So, you accept that is was unexpected that all of United, Chelsea, Arsenal, City and 'Pool each had an indifferent season in the same season! Now, we are getting somewhere.
You have your definition, I have mine, I have already said, yes there have been elements of luck in Leicester's success this season - The form of some of the top sides being one of those. However, Leicester are also a very good, very well organised side - far better than we had been led to believe - their current placing is also to an above average extent down to that. Yes, circumstances have conspired to present Leicester with the opportunity to be where they currently are, but they have also seized that opportunity with both hands.,
If this season hasn't been a fluke for Leicester, then it follows that they are there completely on merit and ought to be considered title challengers next season. Baring another flukey season, no one truly believes that it is going to happen. That is why I (tongue in cheek) told Stan that he was claiming that Leicester would be ruling the roost for the next few seasons - to demonstrate how untenable it is to try to make out any kind of case that Leicester's season has not been a fluke. Don't get me wrong, as far as fluke's go - and short of Spurs winning the title - I'd much rather Leicester win it than any number of other teams.
Wouldn't sport be unbelievably predictable and dull if form and talent was constant? Djokovic would win every grand slam and people would stop watching tennis. Ronnie O'Sullivan would have won every snooker world title for the past 15 years and no one would watch snooker. Celtic would win the league every season and no one would give a **** about Scottish football. Leicester are going to win the league because they will accumulate the most points across a 38 game season. It's not like we're even talking about a cup competition. What other teams have done is largely irrelevant. I said the same when United were considered "lucky" to have won the league in 2013. We weren't lucky, we had the best manager and he got his team to win the most points.
If you go back over the years, you will see that every title winning team have had moments where decisions have gone with them. You can't call it a fluke because other teams haven't performed as well as they could, it's not Leicester's problem. No team has ever fluked a title over 38 games.
Blue, you misunderstand the meaning of fluke. Of course, Leicester have had to win their games, no one is saying any different. If this had happened in a season when Chelsea, or United, or Arsenal, or City, or 'Pool had playing so indifferently, it could not have been called a fluke. But where Leicester's consistent run of good form has coincided with all of those sides having an indifferent season, that is where it is most definitely a fluke.
As has been pointed out, this was Spurs' best chance in over 50 years to win the league. They bottled it while Leicester are apparently going to "fluke" it. Perhaps thinking that Leicester "fluked" it will give him some comfort while he celebrates finishing third?
Because they haven't had the good run of form that Leicester have had. That's my point! There has been the coincidence of two factors, each of which comprises the fluke. Firstly, there has been the fact that so many of Leicester's players are having the season of their lives at the same time. Secondly, there is the fact that all of United, Chelsea, Arsenal, City and 'Pool have had an indifferent season in the same season that Leicester hit unprecedented (and, most likely, unrepeatable form). The chances that this season will happen again are so unlikely as to make it a fluke. If you want to undermine my argument, you are going to have to come up with evidence for another season like this in the Prem. Go on, name one.
Wrong. We have played to form. But for Leicester's unexpected and entirely surprising run of good form, we would be top of the league, but that would, also, be a fluke. It's only because all of United, Chelsea, Arsenal, City and 'Pool have had such an indifferent season this season that we are in the position we are in.
You're trying to be clever again, Stan. It hasn't worked so far. There has never been a season before this in the Prem where an underdog has gone on to win the title, that's because (a) it is unusual for underdogs to hit the kind of consistent form that Leicester have, and (b) it is unusual for all of the top teams to have an indifferent season in the same season. For both (a) and (b) to happen in the same season is a fluke. Such an occurrence is the very epitome of a fluke.
... we also had the best form in the league over the last 10 games of last season ... so rather than a fluke, it suggests that this season has merely been consistent and continuing high performance from the previous, surely?
... I think your 5 European Cups/CL were flukes tbh ... you were just damn lucky that bigger and better clubs didn't perform to their usual standards in those years ...