
Leicester City: Dirty Dozen or Harvard Case Study? - oli5679
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-26/leicester-city-dirty-dozen-or-harvard-case-study
======
colinramsay
Luck probably has played a role, but you'd expect teams like Spurs (perhaps),
Man City (definitely), and Arsenal (who really should have done better having
been the only team to beat Leicester twice this season) to be winning the
league this year given the poor performances of Chelsea and Man U.

The article doesn't mention that Jamie Vardy is the third-highest scorer in
the league, which combined with brilliant individual performances from Mahrez
(just awarded the PFA award for player of the season), Kante, Drinkwater,
Huth, Morgan and more, has seen some superstar performances that have made a
real difference against teams that would have been seen as superior last
season.

I'd suggest that Ranieri's success as manager has been as much to do with man-
management as tactics. He was very careful to get the team focused on staying
up, on getting 40 points to survive. It was only in the past few days that he
told his squad to go for broke and push for the title. They responded by
beating Swansea 4-0, despite being without their top scorer.

The Leicester tale is magical, and incredibly unlikely, but I would challenge
anyone who said that they don't deserve it.

~~~
kerrsclyde
Lifelong Leicester supporter here, I keep expecting to wake from this most far
fetched of dreams...

Yes huge amount of luck. I think there is more luck that many would like to
admit in professional football (or sport). To some extent you make your own
luck of course but our lack of injuries, limited suspensions and the fact that
several of our players seem to have reached that sweet spot in their career at
the same point have contributed.

Ranieri is an extremely experienced manager, the fact that he has had to make
limited changes to a team which was on a tremendous run before he arrived has
been important.

The tactics have changed subtly throughout the season, Vardy was the force
that won us some many games early on. Then the defence took over, we've gone
1-0 up in some many games recently it makes it very difficult for teams to
come back at us without conceding more.

~~~
kinleyd
Enjoy the ride! I'm enjoying the spectacle of Leicester and Tottenham's great
run this year after the bottom fell out for some of the bigger clubs I
normally support. It's fantastic - and I hope both can sustain the pace in the
years to come.

~~~
kerrsclyde
I'm trying my best to enjoy it but I want it all done and dusted ASAP!

I hope it opens the league up for others to have a go next season. West Ham,
Stoke, West Brom, Southampton, teams like that. When you see 30 BBC pundits
all predicting the same five (basically four) teams in the top four places you
have to wonder what ramifications this has for the long term appeal of the
league.

[1]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/33764700](http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/33764700)

~~~
kinleyd
Game against Man United starting now. Good luck!

I'm rooting for Leicester!

------
petepete
One aspect that many people forget when discussing Leicester's success is
Steve Walsh. Under both Pearson and Ranieri, he has overseen the signings of
real quality players very (and I mean _very_ ) reasonably. N'Golo Kante
(£5.6m), Riyad Mahrez (£350k), Stefan Fuchs (free), Jamie Vardy (£1m), Esteban
Cambiasso (who left before this season started, but was instrumental in them
staying up last year, free), Robert Huth, Danny Drinkwater etc, for next to
nothing.

It's a keen eye for a good player, often from foreign leagues or lower
divisions where high-quality statistics aren't so easily available, that makes
the difference. All of those players listed are worth a fraction of what
Manchester City paid for Raheem Sterling (~£50m), and he's barely made an
impact.

~~~
branchless
Pearson also signed a lot of very good players at Hull City. I was sad that he
left us.

------
dandermotj
This article's attempt to contribute Leicester's success this season to
"statistics" is just painful. As if every other team in the Premier League and
three tiers down don't use extensive analysis in every aspect of selection,
performance and scouting. Ranieri's style isn't bizarre or unseen-before. This
isn't Moneyball.

~~~
toyg
Actually, you'd be surprised how many teams "three tiers down" still work in
very old-fashioned ways. One reason is budget, which falls dramatically from
the Championship down; another is that the Premier League is simply at the
forefront of scientific development in football the world over.

Source: I have a brother working in the space.

~~~
blowski
I wonder how much of it is clubs prioritising Champions League success over
winning the Premier League.

~~~
tomlong
I think for many reasons they prioritising qualifying for the group stages...
Financially for the club but also this dramatically affects their ability to
ability to attract players from the very top tier.

Of course, Leicester have just shown you can assemble a team good enough to
win the league (You're not getting 5/1 now, nevermind 5000/1) for next to
nothing. I hope they've all got incredible win the league bonuses in their
contracts anyway.

------
helipad
Leicester's season is an anomaly, and therefore hard to take lessons from.

No-one saw this coming. Not Leicester's players, who were bottom of the league
just over a year ago. Not Leicester's manager, for whom 17th place would have
been a success.

Jamie Vardy scored 5 goals last season, the team had a below average defence,
Ranieri's career to date had done nothing to predict this turnaround.

They're style of play isn't innovative, though it was unfashionable relative
to other styles. Note too that they almost flipped their style 180 part-way
through the season, from gung ho football to extreme counter attacking. There
was no grand plan.

For every argument in Leicester's favour of how they've done it, you can find
many similar examples across other leagues, without anything like the success.

Leicester's season has been incredible and remarkable. We're going to just
have to enjoy it, because we cannot analyse it.

~~~
stinkytaco
I disagree.

Starting with Ranieri, a manager who has not had the career he might have
hoped, but with flashes of brilliance. These include rebuilding Chelsea into a
squad that would compete for the next decade. Frank Lampard credits him with
keeping the team in the premier league. He also somehow brought Juventus from
Serie B to third place (coincidentally foreshadowing his run with Leicester).
He certainly made some bad decisions as well, but it's unfair to say that 17th
would have been a success for the manager. For the team, perhaps, yes.

As to their style of play, that strikes me as their greatest success. Ranieri
was not tempted by "modern" possession focused styles, but rather adapted his
team to the pace of Vardy. The emergence of Mahrez and Drinkwater and the
addition of the excellent N'golo Kante in the midfield also meant they were
able to adapt when team's started to narrow to counter Vardy, using Vardy's
pace to create space. In addition, when this adaptation happened Leicester
organized the defense, keeping more clean sheets and using increased width to
drive players like Fuchs forward. I don't think any of this is a "fluke", but
rather working with the players you have to find what works best.

There is no doubt they've had a great deal of luck, as well. The careers of
both Fuchs and Huth were both considered failures of the promise they once
offered, and certainly Vardy will not maintain his level for very long. They
have also avoided injuries, not testing the depth of their squad, especially
in the midfield. But you do not win the Premier League on luck alone.
Leicester will compete for a Champions League spot next year if they can make
three or four signings to address their depth and keep the core of
Mahrez/Kante/Drinkwater together in the midfield.

~~~
helipad
The question is though how does this differ to what other teams do every year?

Many, many teams have played counter attacking football and not done nearly as
well. Ranieri himself, even until very recently, said the target was 40
points.

I purposely never said that Leicester's success is luck or a fluke. The point
I raise is that how can we begin to unpack their success? For every point in
their favour this season, there are many examples of teams who have adapted
very similar policies.

Counter attacking, ball-winning indefatigable midfielders, pacey strikers,
treating the players with a caring hand, scouting for players in the lower
French leagues, thoughtful managers, creative wingers, colossal centre backs –
these are old tricks.

What lessons can we take from this success? Arguably, none.

~~~
stinkytaco
You can hardly call it an anomaly, then. If they are doing the same thing
other teams are doing, then why is it an anomaly? I think you just unpacked
their success fairly well for a single sentence.

I could just say "Get better players, play hard".

But saying we can't learn anything is just false, considering there are teams
that _aren 't_ doing these things and are successful, and teams that aren't
and are not successful. Crystal Palace lacks any sort of pace or attacking
threat, despite having a number of skilled, creative players. Manchester
United have arguably better players, but are tactically limiting them by
insisting on possession based football (or at least were until about 2 months
ago) rather than a counterattacking approach. Clearly if it was obvious, all
teams would be successful, no?

Saying we can't unpack their success is the Big Sam school of football
tactics, it's all just instinct and good ol' English grit and longballing,
nothing else to say.

------
ramkarthikk
Lot of factors have played a part in Leicester's rise to the top this season.
They have played the same group of players for the most part, who have all
been in the form of their lives, a really good manager (with good man-
management skills), good scouting etc.

One of the factors that most people don't mention but has played a vital part
(also one that separates Leicester from Tottenham, who are 2nd right now) is
that no PL team parks the bus or plays for a draw against Leicester.

Many teams come into the games against big clubs (including Tottenham)
expecting to lose and hence they play defensively hoping to steal a point.
This makes it difficult for the big clubs (they are expected to break tight
defenses almost every game). But any team that plays against Leicester is
expected to play their normal game and try to win it. This helps Leicester in
executing their strategy and hit teams on counter. Again, nothing to take away
from Leicester here. They deserve to win the title this season. And it makes
every sports fan happy.

It will be interesting to see how teams approach Leicester next season.

~~~
toyg
That's changed since Christmas, to be honest, and you can see it from results:
they had to grind out 1-0 results where before they had scored 2 or more.
That's where they've made it: by managing to beat other teams once their game
plan became evident and competitors had adjusted.

------
kristianc
The alternative view is that we're witnessing a bit of a changing of the guard
here.

Perhaps one of the biggest moments of the season was Chelsea's pursuit of John
Stones from Everton coming to nothing. In another year, he'd have gone, but
this year Everton could afford to hang onto their asset.

There's now more scope for teams like Leicester to assemble squads of above-
average players and hold onto them. They haven't fallen into the trap of teams
like Villa, who at one time have had really top players, only to lose them and
have to replace them. Or Spurs in the past with losing players like Bale. Or
Southampton, who I think had to basically rebuild an entire side three times?

There's no longer a huge gap between the top four and the rest, and that gap
is no longer reinforced every year by the same teams getting money for being
in the Champions League.

As such those sides weaknesses are now being more exposed. Man U could well be
in long term decline post-Ferguson, Chelsea are an ageing side, Arsenal have
long term structural weaknesses in their side which they appear unwilling or
unable to address, and Man City in the Premier League often seem to be always
a little less than the sum of their parts.

We might look back and see the first 20 years of the Premier League as being
an anomaly where only a few sides were capable of winning the league.

~~~
jonwinstanley
The increased money means lower clubs can now afford to buy a better standard
of players such as when Cabeye, Payet and Wijnaldum joined average sides in
the Summer.

But I'm not sure this applies to Leicester. They signed a few players but none
that really stood out as surprising apart from Gökhan Inler, who has hardly
played all season.

~~~
kristianc
At the same time, where previously there would have been no chance of Riyad
Mahrez staying with Leicester with PSG, Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid,
Barcelona circling, now they have a real chance of hanging onto him I'd
expect.

~~~
celticninja
If he stays with Leicester he can almost guarantee a first side place, not so
much if he goes elsewhere.

~~~
kristianc
There's lots of other reasons - money, prestige, chance of winning European
trophies regularly, even input of their agent - which would suggest a player
would move even without the promise of first team football.

------
gavinflud
I think their scouting team has definitely played a huge part, bringing in
relative unknowns like Vardy, Mahrez and Kante. Most teams in the premier
league track all sorts of statistics nowadays though, so I don't think that
has set Leicester apart from the others. Companies like Opta make a fortune by
providing some of this data.

Overall, I think they've recruited well, been managed well and have all played
to a level most people didn't think was in them. All of that combined with the
other top teams all having horrific seasons means the stars have aligned for
Leicester. It would be a tragedy if they didn't go ahead and take the title
now.

~~~
ameen
The problem for top teams is that they look for the finished article, not
players getting there. So scouts from Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City
wouldn't have recommended the likes of Mahrez or Vardy since they didn't have
an exceptional season, also only top leagues are looked at. So a Ligue 2
player and a Championship player aren't ever in their sights.

Leicester seeking out gems from unexplored areas is what gave them these
bargain signings. They wouldn't have been able to sign these players if they
had to go toe to toe with big clubs.

------
takno
If it was a science experiment bottom-placed villa were certainly able to
provide the control group, appointing a board largely at random and then
letting them ignore the manager and pick players on the basis of, well
nobody's sure, but they might have liked the names. It seems like the
application of statistics works!

------
rahilb
[http://www.theplayerstribune.com/claudio-ranieri-
leicester-c...](http://www.theplayerstribune.com/claudio-ranieri-leicester-
city-premier-league/)

Here's a nice editorial(?) written by the manager, Claudio Ranieri.

>Now, we are fighting for a title. The Leicester fans I meet in the street
tell me they are dreaming. But I say to them, “Okay, you dream for us. We do
not dream. We simply work hard.”

------
blue11
It's quite a stretch to portrait Leicester as a "moneyball" club. If you
actually looked at the statistical data, they should be losing. A lot. Cherry-
picking a few statistics and building a narrative around them is just silly.
Leicester's season has been the most amazing Cinderella story in football that
I can remember (Greece winning EURO 2004 is the closest, but I did not enjoy
their style that much). And that's why we watch football, no matter what the
statistics tell you, at the end it's 11 vs 11 and the game must be played.

------
lordnacho
Comparing with the us sports is tough for several reasons:

The American sports have no relegation system, but on the contrary have a
loser-to-winner system of drafting. You even hear about potential conspiracies
to come last when a guy like (no pun) Luck is available.

In Europe there's also no salary cap. When my team played Barcelona a few
years ago pretty much all their players had a market value exceeding my whole
team. That doesn't happen in the us sports because of the cap, and so when you
look at various halls of fame you find a nicely spread set of clubs that the
best players played at. This also makes the patriots quite a special
franchise.

So why Leicester? Without having the stats available, I can see a couple of
things.

First, the premier league pays huge salaries. That means even middling clubs
are big fish on the European market. But while there's plenty of stats to say
who is good at playing, it isn't easy to put a value on the relative merits of
players. So you may think Raheem Sterling is a great player, but how much more
should you pay for him than a Mahrez? Hard to say. And you also have the brand
recognition problem. You buy Mahrez for 1M, he bombs, you lose your job. Or
you buy Sterling for 50, he bombs, people think he had an off season or they
think of some other excuse.

Second, even very good players are wary of competing for spots. Leicester are
not a team of amateurs. They are full time professionals, many with national
team experience. Perhaps the prior probability of 1 in 5000 needs revision. It
may have made sense back in the days where some teams were playing local boys
vs international stars, but not in the pro era. I remember years ago one of
the teams in the Danish league went bust and had to field amateurs. They were
caned every match.

Third, it's not easy to go from individual performance stats to a team plan.
It's actually incredibly hard to build a model of how they'll all work
together.

------
yusufp
The only reason Leicester are where they are is because of Team spirit.

Ranieri has imbued a sense of mission and it's very refreshing to see a team
all fighting towards one goal. I used to play competitive sports and whenever
their was a great team spirit, we all seem to have upped our game
substantially. Mainly because you never want to let the guy/girl next to you
down. Spurs, the next best team, seem to have a very similar team spirit
running through them.

This is not to take away from the other important aspects, but it seems that
this is where they stand out. All other teams have good players, scouting,
resources, etc. but not all of them have the same sense of 'need' to win as
Leicester. This spirit is essential.

------
curiousgal
For those unfamiliar with he Premier League, Leicester City is a team that has
one of the greatest underdog fairy tales in the history of any professional
sport.

~~~
SixSigma
Still some way to go to beat their neighbour's story though:

Nottingham Forest won promotion to the top division at the end of the 1976–77
season after finishing third in the Second Division, but no-one could have
predicted how successful Clough's team would be over the next three seasons.

Nottingham Forest became one of the few teams (and the most recent team to
date) to win the English First Division Championship a year after winning
promotion from the English Second Division (1977–78 season).

In 1978–79, Forest went on to win the European Cup by beating Malmö 1–0 in
Munich's Olympiastadion and retained the trophy in 1979–80, beating Hamburg
1–0 in Madrid

They also won the European Super Cup and two League Cups.

~~~
jaimebuelta
Only team to have more European Cups than national top league titles!

~~~
SixSigma
Here's me with my parents and a bit of silver in 1979

[https://i.sli.mg/d09Ktt.jpg](https://i.sli.mg/d09Ktt.jpg)

My parents ran a supporters club out of their pub. Would you believe the club
dropped it off and came back for it the next day !

------
patrickk
When I saw "dirty dozen" in the title I thought: a mainstream article about
Leicester being dosed to their eyeballs on performance enhancing drugs
(controversial opinion alert).

Some random facts:

\- Football is notoriously lax about drug testing. IIRC you get urine tested
maybe every 6 months, if even that much. Urine tests are very easy to skirt
around compared to the gold standard, which is blood tests.

\- Leicester barely survived relegation in 2014/15, they clung on by a single
point. They've apparently gone from Premier League bottom feeders to world
beaters in one season.

-Jamie Vardy, Leicester's star striker and latest England darling ahead of the Euros in the summer, basically burst out of nowhere at 29, scoring just 5 goals in the 2014/15 season, but an astonishing 22 goals in 2015/16[1], including breaking the Premier League record for goals scored in consecutive games. Players are generally not know for having breakout seasons so late in their career.

\- Leicester have a very consistent starting 11 every week over a grueling
season, and been "lucky" with injuries. Some comments from a BBC article:

 _" It is the Foxes who have been by far the most impressive, though, because
they have been able to keep playing at a high tempo from the start to the
finish of matches._

 _Leicester have scored 10 goals in the final 15 minutes of Premier League
matches this season, which have earned them 12 points. The Foxes have also
conceded nine goals in the final 15 minutes but only one of them has cost them
points - Rudy Gestede 's equaliser for Aston Villa in January_.

 _Again, that shows whatever they are doing in training is right, because I
know from experience you do not just stay that fit over many months of the
season._

 _Some people have said they have been fortunate not having many injuries. But
is it luck, or is it down to a really good medical staff and a training regime
that keeps the players fit and at the level of fitness required to play the
way they do? I don 't think it is a coincidence they have managed both._

 _Sure, you need some luck along the way too but I certainly think their
fitness levels are far above most of the other top-flight teams._

 _That has made their style of play more effective, which has made them harder
to beat. You cannot wear them down or just wait for them to tire. "_[2]

\- There's been other PED scandals in football that have been swept under the
table, even buried by judges in Spain. Here's a great Reddit comment heavily
implying that Real Madrid and Barcelona have been/are doping[3]. When a lab in
Spain was raided, Nadal's tennis performance dropped dramatically, Barca's
form dropped, the Spanish national team's invincible streak (2008-2010)
dropped off a cliff. There's other stuff too like Gareth Bale, who became
ripped as hell quite suddenly: _" While many of his Real Madrid team-mates
were away strutting their stuff during the World Cup, it appears Gareth Bale
was busy working hard in the gym. The Wales midfielder took part in Real's
training on Thursday looking rather bulky in comparison to last season."_[4]

None of this on its own _proves_ anything. But if you put all what we know
together: lax drug testing, huge financial incentives to dope, the romance
story of an unknown club surviving relegation by one point in 2014/15 to
becoming world beaters the next season, the lack of injuries, the non-stop,
almost inhuman energy levels over a long season in one of the most physically
demanding football leagues, the massive FIFA scandals and the joy of a
footballing romance story for the fans, you begin to wonder....

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Vardy#Club](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Vardy#Club)

[2]
[http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/35553082](http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/35553082)

[3]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/3s9a9d/how_prominen...](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/3s9a9d/how_prominent_is_doping_in_football_arsene_wenger/cwv9259?context=3)

[4]
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2718823/Re...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2718823/Real-
Madrid-training-ahead-Spanish-Super-Cup-final-against-Sevilla-Cardiff.html)

~~~
duncans
How does doping prevent injuries?

~~~
patrickk
I'm no expert, but according to what I've read: _" anabolic steroids - This
category of steroids stimulates muscle growth and can allow athletes to train
harder and recover more quickly."_ Obvious benefits over a long season.

I've read elsewhere that certain PEDs can shave weeks off injury recovery
times.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/sport/debate/types_1.shtml](http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/sport/debate/types_1.shtml)

------
lintiness
a short lesson in statistics: 20 teams in the premier league, one wins; no
team EVER should be 5000-1 to win it. it was a preposterously stupid betting
line.

~~~
celticninja
Those figures don't mean every team is 20/1.

Your comment is less a lesson in statistics and more a lesson in how people
confuse probability and statistics.

~~~
lintiness
LOL

5000 to 1 means the WORST team in the pl wins the league once in recorded
history (roughly). if this sounds right to you, you're welcome at my poker
table anytime.

~~~
celticninja
The bookies price it like that because they have zero expectation of them
winning the league. If you are familiar with the EPL you would understand why
they thought like this. The reason such crazy odds are offered is because
otherwise few people would place bets on it. Now next season when the bottom
quarter of the table are all at odds of 250/1 a lot of fans will think
"remember Leicester last season” and may bet when they otherwise would not
have or may bet more, without any real expectation of winning.

The odds offered by bookies ate in part based on statistics, probability and
business reasons.

~~~
lintiness
reread my initial post, pal. lc at 5000 to 1 was astonishingly stupid.

------
Graham24
Has anyone else on Hacker News actually seen Leicester City play this season,
or is it just me?

I'm rather unusual in the office as I'm the only one into computers and
watching league football (I blame my dad for that one).

For the record, I thought Leicester City were stylistically the worse team
I've seen since Stevenage. 90 minutes of long ball until Vardy got a lucky
bounce. ugly, ugly, ugly.

I hope Spurs win, at least they played football against us.

Up the Cherries.

------
toyg
"Four big clubs -- Manchester United, Chelsea, _Manchester City and Arsenal_
\-- have won all the titles in the past 20 years", but they "all had appalling
seasons: Chelsea, [...] Manchester United [...] and Liverpool, _the other big
club_ , is seventh."

Er, so Man City and Arsenal are not "big clubs", apparently. Nice "submarine"
insult there.

EDIT: another gem: "All teams have always counterattacked, but few have based
their game so completely around it."

That's utter drivel. Go read up on Italian teams of the 60s, which were pretty
successful at doing exactly that. With all due respect to Claudio Ranieri,
he's not really close to the genius of Nereo Rocco or Helenio Herrera.

The innovation of Leicester City is that they used statistics to identify
players who could fit this style better than the average, and they recruited a
manager who knows how to manage this style of play better than the average.
Whether this combination was an accident or not, I think it's still open for
debate -- they had a very successful run of games with the previous manager as
well.

~~~
radicalbyte
No, he's saying that neither Arsenal or Man City are having appalling seasons.
They're both doing pretty well.

The funny thing is that Spurs are also having a fantastic season, if it wasn't
for Leicester this article could have been written by a Spurs fan about their
amazing rise up the league.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "No, he's saying that neither Arsenal or Man City are having appalling
> seasons. They're both doing pretty well."

As an Arsenal fan, I couldn't disagree with you more. Arsenal have had an
awful second half to the season, if they hadn't had a strong start they'd be
mid table:

[http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/14/revealed-arsenals-terrible-
lea...](http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/14/revealed-arsenals-terrible-league-form-
since-christmas-5815262/)

Many Arsenal fans are somewhat livid with how this season has played out, with
the majority of the anger being directed at the manager and the board.

~~~
ameen
As a Man City fan, I was sure you guys would finally win it. It's as if our
managers don't really want to win the PL. Pellegrini and Wenger's stubbornness
is an important reason for Leicester and Spurs to lead the table.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Thanks. For what it's worth, don't know what's happened to Man City this
season, you were probably missing Aguero early on, but you have enough quality
in your squad it should've been easy enough to adapt. What changes do you want
Pellegrini to make next season?

~~~
ameen
I guess you don't follow the EPL closely. Pellegrini announced that he was
leaving at the original date his contract ended (end of this season), thereby
forcing the club to pre-emptively announce Pep Guardiola.

The reason we lost key ties against West Ham, Spurs and Liverpool was fielding
players that are defensive liabilities vs. defensively sound ones – Kolarov
and Yaya rather than Clichy and Fernando. He also didn't adapt to the game and
stuck with his gameplan so there weren't any comebacks in the league.
Surprisingly we came back more than twice in our CL campaign, against Sevilla
and Borussia Mönchengladbach.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "I guess you don't follow the EPL closely."

Yeah, I only really follow Arsenal's games and get bits of other news here and
there, but I knew about Aguero being injured as I play fantasy football as
well, and he's been doing me proud since he returned from injury. ;-) That
said, now that you mention Pep Guardiola it does ring a bell. Has Pellegrini
announced who he's managing next? Speaking of managers, I'm gutted that
Mourinho may be coming back to the EPL, not a fan of the way he winds people
up.

