'It gets closer. It gets ever harder." Sam Allardyce said that. He said it with some exasperation on Tuesday night after his Sunderland side had made enough chances to defeat Manchester City but took none and lost 1-0.
The result means Sunderland have 14 games to get the 19 more points Allardyce has decreed will be needed to stay in the Premier League this season – 38 minimum. Based on the mathematics, it doesn't look good for Sunderland. And, as Allardyce says, as May gets closer, it gets ever harder.
Allardyce is an experienced man who has dealt in percentages before and his analysis could be correct. Yet elsewhere, most notably Leicester City, the mathematics are not quite so daunting.
It seems that practically everyone thinks Leicester will not turn their brilliant first half of the season into a title. This, it appears, is based on an assessment of what Leicester do not have as opposed to what they do.
Experience of pressure is chief amongst these, a charge thrown up by those who forget where Leicester were with seven games of last season remaining: 20th. They finished 14th.
Leicester withstood pressure last spring in part because of a lop-sided fixture list that is still being ignored. And this time around the fixture list is being ignored again.
Another thing Leicester do not have is not being overlooked though – games. As Jurgen Klopp has pointed out, Leicester have 14 league games left and that is it. Spread over 15 weeks.
Mentally and physically this could be a vital advantage over the team immediately below them and who they meet at lunchtime: Manchester City.
Minimum
City have already played 39 games this season and have a minimum 18 more, 20 if they overcome Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League.
If that were to be the case, City would have played 16 matches more than Leicester by season’s end.
It could be argued City have the resources to fund a squad to cope with this but that’s still a lot of extra work. Just as important is that City can be unconvincing – as at Sunderland – and we do not know what the Pep Guardiola situation would excuse in some minds should they encounter turbulence.
What is anticipated – at least by bookmakers – is that City will beat Leicester, who will then travel to Arsenal on Sunday week deflated. Lose both and Claudio Ranieri’s players will be deemed to have burst.
This is wilful thinking. It is not evidence-based. Leicester have not lost consecutive league games since last February and this season have the best away record in the division.
Moreover, Jamie Vardy will still have 12 games left after City and Arsenal and will note that five of them are against the current bottom seven, four of which – Norwich, West Brom, Newcastle and Swansea – are at home. The last two trips are to Manchester United and Chelsea but who knows the frame of mind of those two clubs by then.
The maths say that there are 42 points left for Leicester to play for. From the last 42 they took 31: W9 D4 L1.
Let’s reduce expectation and estimate the next 14 will read: W7 D4 L3. They would get to 75 points.
Is that enough? Possibly. 78? That should do it.
For City, one complication is congestion. The next 23 days bring five major matches – Leicester and Tottenham in the league, Kiev (away) in the Champions League, Chelsea away in the FA Cup and lastly Liverpool in the League Cup final at Wembley. It is some run.
In the league City have to play the other four in the top five; Leicester have to face three. The bonus for the Foxes is that with Arsenal due to face the other four in the top five and Spurs to face three of them, there will be points dropped by at least two of them.
Distractions
In addition Arsenal have the small matter of Barcelona in the Champions League, while Spurs have Fiorentina in the Europa League. These are not insignificant distractions. The north London clubs are also still in the FA Cup, as are City.
Again the maths supports Leicester. City are in four competitions, Tottenham three and Arsenal three. Leicester have one focus only.
This is the most unpredictable season, so to assert anything can sound unwise but 79 points would have won the Premier League in 2013 and 72 points in 2011. Leicester are on course to hit somewhere in between.
Of course, City, Spurs or Arsenal could suddenly embark on a winning run that would render Leicester’s efforts irrelevant in title terms, but those assuming the surprise leaders will collapse have not paid enough attention to the immediate past, or to the immediate future.
Ranieri might not want to repeat Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” election phrase. But he could, because Leicester City can.
Floundering Celtic: Delia should know being top of the league is no longer an achievement
As Scottish football is currently constituted – Rangers in the second division along with Hibs, Hearts just back in the Premiership after a ruinous era and Aberdeen emerging from a long recovery period of their own into something resembling strength – Celtic's purpose is simple: to impose their dominance on the domestic game and use that experience to mount a coherent challenge in Europe.
Celtic are failing at this.
In the cramped press room at Pittodrie on Wednesday night, after Aberdeen had deservedly won 2-1, Celtic manager Ronny Deila noted that his team were still top of the league.
Deila conceded the mood was “like a relegation”, but either through acting or naivety, he appeared to think Celtic being top of the Scottish Premiership should be regarded as some sort of achievement.
It is the bare minimum. Celtic began the season ridiculously odds-on. Their budget, though reduced, is still around six times that of Aberdeen, never mind the likes of Partick Thistle or St Johnstone.
Now they are in a fight, perhaps temporary admittedly, with Aberdeen, having just lost the League Cup semi-final to Ross County. This comes on top of the real marker, failure in Europe.
Beaten by Malmo in Champions League qualification, Celtic then won none of their six Europa League games and finished bottom of the group.
It wasn't too clever the previous season either, when NK Maribor knocked Celtic out of the Champions League qualifiers.
That came after the 4-1 defeat by Legia Warsaw.
Wherever it is that Celtic are headed, Ronny Deila has surely had his chance with the map.
