5 reasons Leicester City won the Premier League title

Leicester, United Kingdom. A city known for textiles, Walkers, and Kasabian can, as of Sunday, use football as its claim to fame.

In August of last year, Leicester City kicked off a Premier League season that not even the Foxes' most diehard supporters could have imagined. A victory at King Power Stadium over Sunderland evolved into an unbeaten run that spanned six fixtures. The club became the talk of English football, and, by virtue of globalisation, started making headlines across the planet. The doubts persisted as Claudio Ranieri's side continued to flip the beautiful game on its head, even as the unthinkable started to look more and more inevitable.

There are, however, no more question marks.

Leicester completed its fairy tale in appropriate fashion, capturing its first-ever Premier League title and shaking the very core of English football as a result. The Foxes have illustrated that it's possible for clubs outside the "Big Five" to conquer a league that is dominated by money and that offers no sympathy for those with empty pockets.

So, how exactly did Leicester do it?

A charismatic manager with a thirst for learning

"Every time I have time I go to another (manager). I watched Pep Guardiola, I watched (Jurgen) Klopp, I have been to watch Bayer Leverkusen, Augsburg. Last winter I was twice in Germany to watch football. I want to learn. Football is always the same - you can learn; if you have an open mind, you can take. I am like a Japanese camera - I take a photo and I get better. At the beginning Japanese cars weren't good and now they are better than the others."

Those were the words of Ranieri when Leicester entered Christmas Day atop the Premier League standings, looking down at the rest of the league while enjoying the view. They painted an accurate picture of the Italian manager as someone who always wants to learn and echoed his thoughts from the Foxes' 5-2 defeat to Arsenal, when he said: "It is important to learn something. It is the reaction in the next match."

Sure enough, Leicester won 2-1 at Norwich City one week later.

That constant desire for knowledge, willingness to react, and adaptability is what has allowed Leicester to thrive under Ranieri's management. He arrived at the club having coached more than a dozen teams each with a wide range of attributes, but he instantly realised what resources were at his disposal at King Power Stadium. For example, he acknowledged that N'Golo Kante could offer more than Gokhan Inler, and the Foxes' 3-5-2 formation was quickly abandoned in favour of a 4-4-2.

Dilly ding, dilly dong!

A genius on the ball

Every orchestra needs a conductor, and, in Riyad Mahrez, Leicester has a conductor and then some.

If there's one player at Leicester whose contribution to the season can't be quantified, it's Mahrez. He has been leading the Foxes' televised revolution since August, leaving defenders for dead - note his triple homicide versus Aston Villa - and playing a role in about half of his club's goals. Nobody could have foreseen him producing the type of campaign he produced. Not even the Algerian midfielder himself. Back in September, he revealed: "Everybody was saying to me, 'Riyad, England is not for you, it is too physical, too strong. Spanish football would suit you better.' So I never thought I would play in England."

Too physical? Too strong?

Seventeen goals, 11 assists, and one PFA Player of the Year award would prove otherwise.

A clean bill of health

Nothing should be taken away from Leicester's insurrection, but it would be ignorant to assume that the Foxes haven't benefited from a very distinct lack of injuries.

Mahrez and Jamie Vardy have each only missed one Premier League match this season, the latter of whom would be yet to miss to a game were it not for an uncharacteristic sending-off. Kante has also featured in all but one fixture. Kasper Schmeichel, Wes Morgan, and Marc Albrighton could potentially tally 38 appearances this season. It's as if Leicester have developed an immunity to substantial injuries.

Whether it's down to good conditioning or good luck, Leicester's health has allowed the Foxes to develop a cohesion that not even the Premier League's richest clubs can buy. History shows that, prior to this campaign, there were only 14 cases in which a team has used fewer than 20 starters.

Leicester, for the record, has used 18 starters.

A 20-goal forward

When Chelsea won the 2014-15 Premier League title, Diego Costa tallied 26 goals. When Manchester City won the 2013-14 Premier League title, Yaya Toure scored 20 goals. When Manchester United won the 2012-13 Premier League title, Robin van Persie bagged 26 goals. Not since 2008-09 has a club won the top flight of English football without a player who scored at least 20 goals.

Of course, Vardy is Leicester's 20-goal forward, boasting 22 goals to his name with two matchdays remaining.

After he was caught on video using racist language at a casino, Vardy was left with a stain that is not easy to erase and that he may very well carry around with him for the rest of his career. Nonetheless, if there's anything that can make a supporter forget a player's off-the-pitch behaviour, it's a 20-goal season.

A collection of implosions

One by one, English football's "Big Five" fell. Some in spectacular and crash-and-burn fashion; others in a more gradual way.

The first to go down was Chelsea, who, under Jose Mourinho, just couldn't seem to beat anyone and whose title defence quickly went up in flames. The next casualty was Liverpool, although not many people could honestly admit to thinking that the Reds actually had a shot at silverware. Then came December, when United lost three straight matches and fell out of the Premier League's top four, yet to return.

City, Arsenal, and Tottenham Hotspur accompanied Leicester as the clubs who looked set to compete for the Premier League title entering 2016, and while the Foxes were expected to eventually fall out of the picture, it was the other three sides who collapsed from then on. The Citizens lost three consecutive games in between February and March, The Gunners bottled it in Gunner-esque style, and Spurs just couldn't keep pace with Ranieri's squad.