4 reasons Leicester will crash back down to earth next season

Having caught lightning in a bottle this year, Leicester City was deserved winners of its first ever top-flight title. Claudio Ranieri and his squad benefited from more than just good luck, as the club avoided hardships that regularly hamper the title ambitions of the Premier League's best.

From an unfathomable champion to title holders with a target on their back, here's a look at four factors that could see the Foxes collapse as quickly as they ascended to the apex of English football:

The inevitability of injuries

In terms of key pieces, only second-choice winger Jeffrey Schlupp suffered a significant ailment - a hamstring injury that saw the Ghanaian miss 10 matches. Ranieri's side got off easy this season, while those around it spent as much time on the treatment table as on the pitch.

Manchester City's title hopes were thwarted by long-term injuries to Vincent Kompany and Kevin De Bruyne, while Arsenal was stymied by lay-offs to a central midfield trio of Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla, and Francis Coquelin. Manchester United lost so many full-backs that Louis van Gaal's accountant started a Europa League tilt at left-back.

Hard to imagine Leicester will have the same fortunes with fitness next season.

A glut of fixtures

Here's a look at how many matches Leicester and its title challengers have played this year:

* - denotes the club is still in the competition

Early exits in both cups and no continental fixtures meant Leicester played at least ten fewer matches than the clubs nearest in the table. That, paired with minimal injuries, gave the Foxes a massive advantage over their Premier League rivals.

With Champions League football secured for next season and expectations that the club will progress further in both domestic cups, Ranieri will need to beef-up a squad that saw the fewest changes of any Premier League side this season.

The influence of potential departures

A trio of Foxes have emerged from near-unknown commodities to Europe's elite, and with success comes offers from the continent's richest clubs.

Modest means and shrewd buys have helped Leicester this season, and next year's opulent television deal paired with proceeds from Champions League will fatten the pockets a fair bit, but will the East Midland's outfit resist the lavish offers for its best players?

Six months from his 30th birthday, it's unlikely that star striker Jamie Vardy will jump ship. The same can't be said for 25-year-olds N'Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez, who are both from Paris and its surrounding suburbs and are sure to receive offers from Paris Saint-Germain despite the Algerian international's insistence that he's happy in England.

Leicester's fate rests not just with who it loses, but who it brings in.

Ranieri's signings have underwhelmed compared to those of Nigel Pearson. Vardy, Mahrez, Robert Huth, Danny Simpson, and Marc Albrighton were all brought in by the former Foxes boss. To Ranieri's credit, and more so head scout Steve Walsh, Kante, Shinji Okazaki, and Christian Fuchs were bought for a thrifty total of £13.9 million. Those were the good buys. Yohan Benalouane and Gokhan Inler were the opposite, signalling that the endearing Italian's transfer moves have been a mixed bag.

A return to prominence of England's best

On 41 points with a quartet of fixtures left, Chelsea is slated to finish with its worst points total and position since the Blues registered 50 points and finished 11th in 1995-96. With Antonio Conte set to bring both his demanding style and a host of new players to Stamford Bridge, Chelsea will again be a title threat in 2016-17.

Similarly, it's hard to see Manchester United sink any further than it already has. While Louis van Gaal's tenure is a slight improvement on 2013-14's seventh-place finish, emerging youngsters like Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford would pair well with a slew of summer signings to again make the club a title threat.

Liverpool continues to show signs of promise in Jurgen Klopp's first year at the helm, and with Arsene Wenger's 20-year tenure so heavily tethered to next season, it's probable that the north London side will go all in next season on winning its first league trophy since 2003-04.

To top it all off, with Champions League football on the horizon, second-place Tottenham is poised to transition from a selling club to one monitoring moves for some of Europe's top talents.

A fairy tale of epic proportions that flipped a formulaic top-four on its head, Leicester's title chase has the feeling of a one-off miracle more than the foundation of England's next big club. Only time will tell.