The latest friendly game between Leicester vs. PSG marked their "first" tough challenge outside of England against a top flight team. A heavy defeat was what they experienced (4 - 0).

I dont know how many of us here watched or at least followed the game, but I can say PSG was rampant, superior in all departments. We all saw this coming, didn't we? This loss would do more good to Leicester I think, they should know who they are keep their feet down and set their priority straight!

I would love to see them doing well in CL, but I think CL should be their least goal. Top 10 in EPL would be realistic, and for that they might surprise us again.

My prediction would be:

• Top 10 in EPL
• Out of CL soon and go down to Europa league
• Win a couple of games in Europa league

I would love to see them doing well in CL, but I think CL should be their least goal. Top 10 in EPL would be realistic, and for that they might surprise us again.

Interesting that you say that. Surely if the top four is out of reach, they've got to go all guns blazing in the CL as they may not be playing in Europe's elite competition for quite some time.

I honestly don't know where they'll end up this season Willian said something about this and he's right, this season will be the hardest PL season ever. I can't see City, United, Pool, Spurs, Leicester, Arsenal or Chelsea finishing outside the top four but obviously three of them won't make the cut.

I think your prediction is pretty safe Tuan. Keep in mind that they won the BPL by beating everyone expect the top teams.

2 losses vs Arsenal
2 draws vs United
1 draw 1 win vs City
1 draw 1 win vs Spurs
1 draw 1 win vs Chelsea

They just didn't slip up against anyone else, which is why they won. For that reason, even if they still had Kante, I wouldn't expect them to go far in CL, maybe not even make it out of group.

I believe Leicester can target a top 7 finish next season and hope to get to the round of 16 in ucl at the very least or finish 3rd in their group and have a run in the Europa league. losing kante for Leicester was a big loss but we'll have to see if mendy can fill his spot. mendt has similar characteristics to kante such as bith being 5'6 tall, both black, both cdm and both French. Maybe he's another gem Leicester have found from French league? We'll have to also see if other Leicester players stay like Mahrez although I would love him at Arsenal :P

Its hard to predict their CL results as we don't against wich they will play against in the group phase. Lets say they meet agaisnt team like BVB or Sevilla, I don't really they will have a lot of chance to continue but if they get a group with team like Lyon, then maybe they will have a chance. I will wait to see who they play against in the CL for a prediction about that. I don't think they will have a season as good as the last one sadly, maybe they will manage a place in the europa league next year, we'll see.

Top 7 is even hard Im afraid...

But it's funny to see everyone's doubt... They are the champ of England (one of the best league, arguably "the best" by some), if it had been MU, Chelsea or any other, we would have predicted entirely different.

It would be interesting to listen to reasons for that too.

@tuan_jinn I guess thats because team like Chelsea and Manchester United are expected to finish high since they usually have more budget, better manager and staff of extreme quality. They also have deeper and more talented squad most of the time and even their youth player are superior to that of other team. Thats my theory anyway. Does it make sense? :D

i think they will definitely struggle to get into the top 10. Especially if Mahrez leaves. CL no chance, Europa - they might win some games.

People who've seen me active on this site, know that i'm not a leicester city fan at all. I didn't bandwagon like almost everyone else. I think their win was extremely lucky. They played during a season where the top tier teams struggled and they won most of their games with 1 goal difference. Even Arsenal near the end of the season tanked. Spurs were right on their toes......and most football fans that I've talked to, know that the Spurs don't have the strongest squad.

@Sunflash is right. Even when big teams struggled during a very lucky season, Leicester still didn't have a good record against them.

2 losses vs Arsenal
2 draws vs United
1 draw 1 win vs City
1 draw 1 win vs Spurs
1 draw 1 win vs Chelsea

I'd say that is a very good record against top opposition though^. Probably as good as the record of last years EPL winners..

I predict Leicester to finish outside of top 7 this year. With that said I do believe their signings so far have been good, bur far from enough to finish top in a league that is most likely going to be a lot tougher the upcoming year.

And, it's impossible to predict CL without knowing the opposition. Going head totally guessing I believe they'll finish 3rd in the group, and then go pretty far in EL instead.

Not sure about CL because BPL teams have been in bad form against la liga or other non english teams. But I think Top 5 in BPL and maybe quater final in europa league. But first they have to handle the summer transfers well. Just Vardy and Mahrez isn't enough for Leceister, so they need to buy young, high potential, good players. So far not much progress. But it is still hard to predict UCL because we don't know it's opponents yet, so hard to tell.

In the BPL 2015/16 they haven't won much against big clubs like MC, MU, Chelsea. So I guess Leceister just had a lucky season but luck probably won't go on as well next season.

The PSG-Leicester game was just a friendly. I think Leicester will make it out of the group stages easily in the CL. They are in Pool 1 with the other league champions. So they should get a comparatively easier draw.
In terms of Premier League, even without Kante, I think they still have enough to atleast finish in the top 6.

Now the interesting thing about the actual PL holder is that They simply had no competition from the historical big 4, They reached a historical score in the final table but just from their perspective, the other part of the iceberg hidden by Mahrez, Vardy, Kante And co is that They were the only consistent team of the league. For big teams getting a result against weaker opposition should be not a hard task. I gave 70% of their success to big guns weakness last year without saying They were lucky pr something, out of 38 games They were the most consistent and motivated.
I think after big names departures They will stay in midtable but They probably wrote a great page of History, with the help of the other big guns who were below average.
They Will probably get a not so dificult group in CL considering their pot 1 position, but even of They keep their players CL games need experience which They dont have atm.
Im not expecting much, in CL Spurd may also struggle for same reason, agree with Tuan here.

Whatever happened last year was a miracle and as tiki mentioned regular top clubs were weak and very inconsistent . This year , we have three 5 world class managers who all have one thing on their mind is to win league or be in top 4 . If once again Leicester surprises it will be even bigger surprise than last year because this year it will be bloody tougher to even hold on to top 4 .

As guys mentioned above , Leicester has lost some quality players and one of the biggest reasons their midfield was so solid transitioning from defense to attack very quickly and ruthlessly was N'golo Kante work and reading of the game . I highly doubt that Mahrez is staying and if he leaves than I can't see who is going to feed Vardy upfront ..

@Marcus2011 Ranieri is pushing hard for him to stay though, so its hard to know wether Marhez will go or stay. Leicester is really in a period of doubt right now. We will have to wait and see at the beginning of the season how thing have developed. I agree its gonna be even tougher now though.

Just like everyone is predicting, I think they'll not make it far in the CL or EPL.

UCL probably out in second round after finishing 2nd in their group.

If they get lucky they can manage a 4th or 5th place in the league but realisticlly they will probably en 7th

Leicester played really well in the 2nd half today against Barca, Musa looked great!!!

Although seem to be a class lower than Barca, they did show some characters, These friendly games would be a great value for them, top 7 should be possible.

@Marcus: "Whatever happened last year was a miracle and as tiki mentioned regular top clubs were weak and very inconsistent"

See, I don't buy that argument as much as others do. This whole 'the top clubs were weak' claim is really just an excuse, in my opinion, because they bottled it. The reason they were inconsistent is because the level of competition is getting even harder. Back in the Top 4 era, you expected those Top 4 teams to smash everyone else every week. That's because the Top 4 were clearly better than the rest of the league.

Now? The whole league is awash with money, and so every single team in the league is capable of pulling out a great result. It's becoming harder and harder to win games in the PL, when every club can assemble, essentially, the same squad of Leicester in terms of cost. Leicester clearly picked some of the best deals around (Mahrez and Kante spring to mind), but no-one thought of them as league-beaters when they signed, did they?

What happened was that Ranieri made sure his team kept their discipline, and early on in the season they were underdogs. Every week. Everyone they played thought: "oh, we're going to smash these guys". Which played right into Ranieri's hands, as he set the team up in more or less classic catenaccio. Don't forget how many games, even against smaller opposition were won by 1-0, or draws gained at 1-1, with low possession. They had very few games where they were high scorers; they just didn't LOSE.

And then as the season went on, people started to praise the Foxes, and lesser teams started being afraid of them. But the bigger teams? Still not afraid, and so the underdogs kept their catenaccio going in all the big clashes, and got a healthy return. Meanwhile, all those teams who underestimated Leicester did NOT underestimate teams like City and United, and instead tried doing the exact same thing to the big teams that Leicester had done to them.

And when the dust settled... Leicester came out on top.

That won't happen again. This year EVERYONE will be wise to what Leicester are capable of. They won't get to sit back and pounce on the counter so much as they did last season. Teams will back off, and try to park the bus against THEM, and trying to squeeze a point out of THEM and it remains to be seen whether they can become the type great attacking possession side necessary to overcome that.

I don't think they will, and that's why I expect them to fall all the way down to 8th etc. In the CL? Well, we shall see, but it just might be that they will be underestimated there, and can use that underdog status again. ;)

But I am not sold on this idea that they won just because everyone else was 'crap'. It's just getting so hard to even BE consistent in this league, when the level of competition from every club in the league is so high.

I hear you Lodatz, but I cannot reasonably accept the argument that a team like City, with players like City, lost because Leicester was baseline better. Leicester won that title because teams like City and Chelsea heavily underperformed. Would any manager in the world take Vardy over Aguero? How about Mahrez over De Bryune? Ok-maybe the second one.

No one here is saying that Leicester didn't deserve to win, or didn't do what they had to do. What I am saying is that in any other year, Leicester "doing what they had to do" still would not have been enough.

If you think I'm focusing on individuals, I can play the team game as well. City made it to the CL semis, and knocked out PSG, coming within a deflected goal of drawing even with Real Madrid. That same City team didn't lose the title to Leicester, they lost it to themselves.

City's PL dropped points:

Spurs twice, Arsenal twice, United twice, Leicester twice, Liverpool twice, Stoke, Southampton, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Norwich, Swansea.

They dropped points against every team that was decently good and all three relegated sides. Most years, including the one we're probably about to see, City NEVER drop points twice to Spurs, Arsenal, United, or Liverpool. They certainly don't drop six total points against the relegated sides.

It was City's title to lose and they lost it. This is not even mentioning Chelsea, who was the other favorite alongside City to start the season. When does Chelsea in the post-Abramovich era ever do that? Never in history, until last year.

I guess my point is, not only did everyone underperform, some teams underperformed on a historic level. That just happened to happen at the same time as Leicester overperforming on a historic level. You'd have a hard time convincing me that if City/Chelsea/United without a shitty manager would not have won the league last year if they had performed to their level, regardless of what Leicester was doing.

To conclude, if the level of the league is "that high" than another non-historically dominant team should be odds on to win the league this season. I wouldn't take that bet, would you?

"I hear you Lodatz, but I cannot reasonably accept the argument that a team like City, with players like City, lost because Leicester was baseline better."

That's nice. It's also something I didn't say.

"They dropped points against every team that was decently good and all three relegated sides. Most years, including the one we're probably about to see, City NEVER drop points twice to Spurs, Arsenal, United, or Liverpool. They certainly don't drop six total points against the relegated sides."

You might be surprised, actually, about the relegation (and/or lesser) teams.

In the 2014-15 season they lost (and drew) to Burnley, and drew against both Hull and QPR. They also lost to Crystal Palace and Stoke. They still finished 2nd.

In the 2013-14, season they lost (and drew) to Sunderland, Aston Villa and Cardiff, dropping more points against Norwich and Stoke (again). They won the title that year.

In 2012-13 they lost to Norwich and Sunderland, dropping yet more points against QPR. They still came 2nd though.

What I'm saying is that there are always smaller teams who take chunks out of City, and this season while they drew against Aston Villa, Newcastle and Norwich, the only smaller team who beat them were Stoke (again, lol). That's pretty much par for the course, so the low table and mid-table are normal.

The big difference was against the other big teams, and yes, it is unusual for City to lose twice to Spurs and Liverpool, and to not once beat Arsenal or United, that's not because they simply didn't perform. That's because the other teams BEAT them.

Liverpool didn't hang on for a lucky victory. They spanked City all over the pitch. So did Spurs, and ultimately so did Arsenal. That's because as good as City still are, they're no longer head and shoulders better than everyone else. They had Aguero, who still scored 24 goals. It's not like he was AWOL for the season, the way that Hazard was. de Bruyne also played well this season. They simply got BEATEN, by a lot of teams who have been waiting for their payback, and who have also gotten better.

I just think it's a very flawed way to look at it to simply say: oh well, City and Chelsea weren't very good this year, so that's why other teams won things. After all, in Europe: City won their group, beat PSG and only lost to Real Madrid by a single goal over two legs. They also won the League Cup.

You can't tell me that's a 'crap season', just because Leicester, Arsenal and Tottenham OUTperformed them in the league.

"I guess my point is, not only did everyone underperform, some teams underperformed on a historic level"

And I say that's really not true at all, and in fact is quite disrespectful to the teams who did play well. United didn't 'underperform'. They were, instead, inferior to their competition in every department; something that Mourinho is spending roughly 150-200m to try and fix, with no guarantee that it will be enough.

The other teams were simply better.

"To conclude, if the level of the league is "that high" than another non-historically dominant team should be odds on to win the league this season. I wouldn't take that bet, would you?"

No, and that's not a logical progression, either. Leicester BEAT the odds, they didn't fulfill a strong likelihood. The point about the level of competition int he league is that teams like City and Chelsea are no longer far superior to their domestic competition. Liverpool have finished outside of the Top 4 for five out of the last six seasons. United have done the same for 2 out of the last three. But here they are, being mooted as potential title challengers, just on reputation and expectation alone.

Other teams simply played better, and may well do so again.

Oh, and i just caught this:

"When does Chelsea in the post-Abramovich era ever do that? Never in history, until last year."

Well, actually, they came 6th in 2012. Are you aware that Chelsea have only won 4 league titles in the Abramovic era, and 2 of those came in the first 3 years?

That's 13 years, and only 4 titles (and only 2 in the last 10 years).

Never in history? What?

Just saying: by your logic, when United won the title in 1993, it was only really because Liverpool (the undisputed heavyweight of the time) had underperformed.

In 2003, it was only because Arsenal (fresh off a double the year before) had underperformed.

In 2007, it was only really because Chelsea weren't quite as good as they had been for the past 2 dominant years.

In 2013, it was only because City had taken their foot off the gas, and not performed to their usual standard.

And, in 1999, Bayern underperformed to let you win the Champions League. Really, if we were to play that game again 10 times, 8 times or more Bayern would have won. You got lucky, right? You were lucky that the others did not perform.

See how easy it is to throw that argument around? The truth is, on every occasion, the wind was turning, and the team who deserved it most won the trophy. Hail to Leicester, I say, and enough with the excuses from the other clubs.

They just won't do it again. ;p