March is a time where underdogs thrive and the improbable happens. Heck, ESPN's BPI gave Arkansas-Little Rock less than a one percent chance of coming back to beat Purdue in the opening round of the tourney after being behind by 14 points with less than five minutes to play, while Middle Tennessee State was a 16.5-point underdog to a Michigan State team which was rolling right along heading into the dance.
But none of those stories compare to the story of Leicester City. The Foxes are just seven matches away from locking up the Premier League championship, and they've gone from a 5,000 to 1 underdog at the outset of the year to a team which is now an odds-on favorite to win it all.
English Premier League Odds at BookMaker.eu
Leicester City -250
Tottenham +250
Arsenal +600
Manchester City +2500
Manchester United +15000
Liverpool +20000
First off, we'll point out just how amazing it is to see basically all of the bluebloods of the Premier League on the outside looking in. There are essentially just three teams left in the EPL race at this point, but none of those teams are named Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool or Chelsea. Heck, even Arsenal, a team we'll talk about in a second, is almost assuredly on the outside looking in. Those are five of the biggest spending teams in the entire world, and they can't even finish in the Top 2 in their own domestic league this season.
The Gunners are 11 points back of Leicester City with eight matches left to play, but they're getting healthy at the right time and don't have any more competitions they have to worry about. After a grueling stretch of matches which included several in the middle of the week this year, Arsenal has been eliminated from the Champions League and the FA Cup, and they've got a favorable schedule ahead of them.
Arsene Wenger and company are going to be favored in all of the rest of their matches save for an away tie with Manchester City, but there's a real chance to get something like 20 points in these last eight matches to get to 75 for the season. The big question is whether that's really going to be enough to get the job done, and you can color us as pessimists that that will be the case.
Tottenham only managed to draw the North London Derby at home in the beginning of March, and that might end up being catastrophic for it down the stretch. The good news is that all of the midweek fixtures are said and done with now that the team was dismissed from the Europa League by Borussia Dortmund last week.
Harry Kane is in fine form, including his awesome performance against Bournemouth on Sunday in which he had a brace inside of 17 minutes of the match. However, he and his mates have a really tough road ahead of them. The Spurs are at Liverpool then home against Manchester United and at Stoke City. All of these matches could easily be lost, and anything less than seven points in the three affairs could spell the end of their challenge.
And that leaves Claudio Ranieri's side, one which is now 19-9-3 through 31 matches in the top flight and sitting on 66 points, five clear of the Spurs with seven left to play. One would like to think that getting to 75 points is going to be the minimum needed to lock up this title, and getting to 80 would ice it.
It hasn't been pretty for the Foxes, but they just continue to rack up close win after close win. They've got three straight 1-0 wins to their credit, and they all could've, and perhaps should've ended in draws.
After a week off for international play, Leicester will be back at it with three of their next four matches at home along with an away tie with Sunderland. There will be a real chance to secure all 12 points from those affairs, and if that ends up being the case, there could be widespread celebrations at King Power Stadium, where the team hasn't had a moment like this in its history.
We really can't see a circumstance in which the Foxes blow it from here.
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