Leicester enjoying thrill of the hunt

Watford 0 Leicester 1: And so the fairytale continues. While all eyes – except Claudio Ranieri’s, apparently – were on White Hart Lane to see whether Spurs or Arsenal could make up ground on the leaders, Leicester went quietly about their business again, doing what they do best, grinding out a functional victory to move five points clear at the top of the table.

Again it was Riyadh Mahrez who made the difference, with the only goal of the game, and again Ranieri and his players played down the looming prospect of Leicester becoming Premier League champions. Yet this most unlikely of title races is heading towards an unthinkable climax, both at this time last year, when Leicester were rock bottom of the table, and at the start of the season when Ranieri was appointed manager. The Italian’s track record in recent years did not suggest he would lead the Foxes in a hunt for silverware, and indeed as Jamie Vardy pointed out: “Everyone said we were relegation fodder. It was every newspaper and every pundit, wasn’t it? No-one gave us a chance.”

But “The Tinkerman’ tag doesn’t ring true for Vardy, who has seen Ranieri arrive and make subtle tweaks rather than wholesale changes to the side Nigel Pearson built and who saved themselves from relegation by winning seven of their remaining nine games this time last year.