A remarkable recovery from a seemingly doomed position - Leicester fan Ian Gallagher attempts to explain how it was done.

Assess Leicester' remarkable season for us. Why the prolonged, dramatic dip in the middle?

IG: Enthralling, agonising, uplifting, bizarre, scary, batshit mental... I don't think we'll ever see a season like this again, either at Leicester or in the Premier League. We were dead and buried at the bottom despite being nowhere near the worst team in the division, and we've somehow escaped with a game to spare.

We started like a train, playing the same kind of high-tempo, positive football which served us so well last season. We seemed to fear nobody. Then by the dead of winter, people started reminding me they were still in shorts when we beat Man Utd 5-3 and we'd won the sum total of fuck all since.

It sounds very simplistic, but part of the reason we dipped so catastrophically was bad luck. We were in every game and nobody put us away, but we kept losing narrowly to teams which were supposedly much better than us -Arsenal, Man City, Spurs...the list goes on. If we had points for nice sentiments from opposition fans/players/managers, we'd have been laughing.

Being a bit more considered, the 2-2 draw at home against Burnley was probably a turning point. Nigel Pearson tried to sit back on a 2-1 lead and Ross Wallace hit that peach of a free kick in the ninety sixth minute, after a daft foul by Matty James. We'd have never played like that in the Championship. After that, we saw the first signs of prickly Pearson too, as Sean Dyche seems to get under his skin with comments about how much we've spent. I think that was when things started to slip — we changed our shape far too often, we never fielded a consistent side and we were too pragmatic at times even though we always shipped goals.

What's brought about the amazing turn around at the end?

IG: A combination of terrific team spirit, some exemplary individual performances and the luck finally going for us. We go into Easter seven points adrift and we beat West Ham thanks to an absolutely horrible, scrambled goal by Andy King and you're thinking: 'Hang on a minute...two weeks before, that would have hit a defender on the arse and gone wide...' But it went in. And we never looked back.

Even when we were losing 2-1 at West Brom it felt like we could win, and there just seemed to be so much belief in the team that day. Then Jamie Vardy pops up with a brilliant last minute goal and all of a sudden we're only one point off, we've won back-to-back games at last... Then we absolutely tear into Swansea and beat them convincingly. The stadium was bouncing that day and I think at that point people really started to believe we were going to pull this off.

Once you've beaten Burnley in a six-pointer with a lucky goal, having overcome the problem of (a) having to start with Paul Konchesky and (b) him conceding a penalty which is fortunately missed, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd done enough there and then. I still can't fathom why Danny Ings didn't take it...

Player-wise, it's probably unfair on the majority to single people out. But look down the spine of the team — Kasper Schmeichel, Robert Huth, Esteban Cambiasso and Jamie Vardy. It's no accident that we've kept so many clean sheets since Schmeichel returned from injury and Huth arrived. Huth also seems to bring out the best in Wes Morgan and Marcin Wasilewski too, and the daft mistakes and sloppy goals have dried up.

Then Cambiasso...well, what can you say? I'd pay just to watch him every week. It took him a while to acclimatise to the speed of the league, but he's just class in every respect. He's the manager on the pitch and in terms of football brain and game management, he's on a different planet.

Finally, Vardy is doing what we'd hoped he'd be able to do. He may not score that often compared with last year, but he absolutely terrorises defences. I'm surprised Mike Williamson could catch up with him to boot him into a cameraman and start his summer holidays early.

Shed any light on the Pearson sacking and reinstatement? I know you were very upset when it seemed like he was going…

IG: I was indeed very upset. I think it's accepted wisdom now that he was sacked by one of the owners and reinstated by another. Sky's Rob Dorsett got a lot of unfair flak (including from me...) but his source was correct. It was just overturned a few hours later.

However they came to the decision to keep him, it was the right one. Straight away, we went to Arsenal and played them off the park. We lost of course, but it made me even more sure that no other manager out there could get as much out of this group of players as Pearson can. Pearson has built us up from a very low starting point, and at the time I just thought it was madness to get rid of him. Even if we'd have gone down I would still have wanted him to stay.

Pearson seems to have gone a bit mad. Was he always like this but the Championship gets less coverage? Has he suffered with the extra pressure and scrutiny? What's he been playing at?

IG: Ah yes, that question. I thought you'd never ask... I don't remember him being like this in the Championship at all, and almost certainly for the reasons you suggest — there aren't the same levels of scrutiny and pressure. Nigel clearly doesn't suffer fools gladly and has precious little time for the media, of whom there are many more this season. But read an interview with a journo he respects (Henry Winter, for example, after the Liverpool game) and you get a genuine insight into the bloke.

Everyone else gets very little or nothing — including our local radio commentator, who he gave the boot to a long time ago. We've had Fuck Off And Die-Gate, StrangleGate, PrickGate and finally OstrichGate, and yet we've stayed up and some people are saying Pearson should be manager of the year. It's absolutely crazy. I certainly don't agree with everything he's done and I doubt it has all gone down well with our Thai owners, as respect is a big thing for them, but it clearly has had no impact at all on his ability to manage the players and get the best out of them.

It also has to be said, if Jose Mourinho had called a journalist an ostrich, it would have been genius; typical Mourinho, taking the attention off his players at a crucial point of the run-in...

Danny Simpson has been in and out — what have Leicester made of him?

IG: This is an odd one for me. We persisted with Ritchie de Laet in the early part of the season, even when most left-sided forwards had him on toast. When Simpson finally made his debut, it was only because de Laet was ill. He looked every inch a solid, dependable if unspectacular right-back who could do the basics better than de Laet. He was fine when we played five at the back too. Then we started going for broke with three at the back, and he was out again. Mark Albrighton has been a fixture at right wing back and has been superb, but it's not his natural position. It seems that for whatever reason, Pearson doesn't see Simpson as a first choice pick. (Penned before this week’s court case — ed)

Stand out performers and weak links…

IG: To the four players I mentioned above I'd add Riyad Mahrez, Jeff Schlupp and Leonardo Ulloa.

Mahrez is fleet of foot with genuine quality and deceptive pace, and he's one we definitely have to work hard to keep hold of. Schlupp can be infuriating and has a habit of switching off during games, but he is such a positive player and is another one who terrorises defences with his pace. It was a bold decision to ditch Lloyd Dyer at the end of last season, but I'd argue he wouldn't have been as effective as Schlupp this season. Ulloa can look ungainly and takes a lot of stick, but on his day he's been unplayable. It was a big outlay for a bloke in his late 20s who'd never played in the top flight, but he's scored 12 goals and has usually been pretty effective.

Weak links? Same as last year. Paul Konchesky is still in Pearson's blind spot and we desperately need a new left back. Elsewhere, Matthew Upson has never really been fit and Anthony Knockaert has barely had a look in, which is a surprise for someone who was so good in the division below. People will always knock David Nugent for not scoring enough goals in the top flight, but he's most definitely not a weak link. His workrate, link-up play and technical ability are all excellent and he's probably our best number ten.

What does the team need to make survival a more comfortable experience next year?
I think we need to bust a gut to sign Robert Huth and possibly another centre half. And definitely a left back too (did I mention that?). Another year from Cambiasso would be wonderful but we ideally need to strengthen in midfield too, regardless of whether he stays. Matty James has a long-term injury and Danny Drinkwater has struggled to reach the levels he showed last season. None of our strikers are prolific, so that elusive 15-goal-a-season man would be nice. Fortunately for us, the sum of our parts is greater than any individual, but I'd still love to see a Charlie Austin or Danny Ings-type player here.

We also have the small matter of our record signing, Andrej Kramaric, getting splinters in his backside since January. He's clearly very gifted and if he finds his feet early next season, he could be a very big player for us.

Short, medium and long term aims for the club

Short-term, I guess, is comfortable survival next year. I think that's doable with the right additions and pressing on with the positive way we play. But we mustn't fall into the same trap as Hull, and waste all our new-found wealth on bad players with wigs and attitude problems. There are teams way worse than us who will still be in the division in August, and I don't mean the ones that are coming up from the Championship.

Medium and long term, I think we have to be realistic. There's no reason why we couldn't be another Swansea, Stoke or possibly even Southampton — the fanbase is there and the backing is there, but to push on beyond that might stretch us beyond our means. You look at a club like Spurs who splash tens of millions on players every year and still can't get anywhere near the Champions' League, and even what they're achieving is light years ahead of where we are. I don't think we're going to be any different to lots of clubs of a similar size — just staying in the Premier League will be considered an achievement, even if there's little joy in just trying to reach 40 points and trying to get knocked out of the cups early.

But for now, I'll just get very drunk and celebrate our survival on Sunday, and worry about that another day.

The Twitter @IanGallagher82, @Loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

TacticalR added 17:15 - May 22 Thanks to Ian. Although I think the pressure did get to Pearson, I agree with you that it would have been sensible to keep him even if Leicester had gone down. Fortunately the owners came to their senses over the Pearson sacking - they had already made the mistake of letting him go once before.
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