It’s a 10-game season, so they say. There will be lots of that kind of talk in relegation land, and it’ll be a nine-game season by Monday morning. By then Leicester City and Hull City will have met and Sunderland and Aston Villa will have done the same.
These are games that hold the possibilities of knockout blows and the rush of momentum, or attritional point-gathering, and worst of all, doubt and the gnawing fear that this is the beginning of the end.
It would be easy to look at the table and think that at Leicester they must have begun to think long and hard about doubt and whereabouts in the Championship they will be this time next year.
It is to be hoped not. A gambling man with money to spare after Cheltenham would probably consider a Premier League relegation tri-cast of QPR, Burnley and Leicester to be worthy of its favourite status.
Chisel out
Indeed, while it is possible to see where QPR and Burnley might chisel out draws, it is harder to see games they can win. They may fight to the end, but that may not be enough.
Leicester, four points adrift of those two, also look doomed, but that is a basic assessment. Leicester have a game in hand (against Chelsea) – theirs is an 11-game season – and they face four of the five teams above them in that spell. Even on 18 points, it’s not all over.
It requires a jump in results on their part – and a leap of faith on ours – but if there is one club that might mix things up at the bottom, it is Leicester City. They are not the worst team in this division, that is the contention. Which is different from a prediction.
Clear favourites
Some agree. One peculiarity surrounding the Hull match is that Leicester, 20th of 20, are clear favourites. Even though they have not won a Premier League game since early January and have taken a solitary point from the last 18, Leicester are considered by bookmakers favourites to beat a Hull side that has won two, drawn two and lost one of their last five.
There's something there that doesn't stack up. It's as if the bookies are intimating that they have seen something. That in itself is worth investigation. Maybe it's the fact that 10 of Leicester's losses have been single-goal defeats. Manager Nigel Pearson has said consistently that performances have been better than results, and his team have not been battered. They have not conceded four goals once.
But if near misses are a dominant theme of your season, then there’s a problem.
People will begin to look away and, superficially, when you see Leicester v Hull there is a reason, more than one in fact, why this has not been chosen for live transmission.
Yet glance at what lies ahead and this 90 minutes assumes season-shaping significance for both clubs. Should Leicester win, they would be six points behind 15th place Hull with a game in hand.
Should they lose, that gap will be 12 points and Hull are unlikely to be caught by even the smartest of Foxes. A draw probably counts as a Hull win.
The result will have implications for morale. As Louis van Gaal said pre-Arsenal, that game mattered for Manchester United because the consequences bleed into the next game.
Away trips
For Leicester and Hull, it is the same. A Hull loss would see them suddenly noticing that they have Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Man United, Southampton and Swansea yet to play.
Leicester, meanwhile, would be looking at their coming games at home to West Ham, Newcastle and QPR and away trips to Burnley and Sunderland.
Pragmatists say you have to play everyone twice, but the order in which those games are played is not irrelevant. In a way the table is lop-sided.
At this stage last season, Norwich City occupied Hull’s position, 15th. And they had a point more. But everyone said Norwich had a difficult run-in and 10 games later they were relegated. In six of their last seven, Norwich failed to score. It can happen.
From 29 points and security on March 16th, Norwich had 33 points and relegation on May 11th. West Brom, Sunderland and Crystal Palace all leapt over them. To stay up, the average needed over the past five seasons is 36 points. This season, 33 and a beneficial goal difference might do it.
Heightened concern
Villa’s goal difference is the worst in the division and it could tell. Their match at Sunderland is likely to be a fraught examination of the anxiety of goallessness. If there is a loser at the Stadium of Light, and Leicester win, then there should be heightened concern.
No player from either Sunderland or Villa has yet scored five league goals this season.
At Leicester, Leonardo Ulloa has seven goals and they have broken the club transfer record to sign Andrej Kramaric. The pair have been bought to provide goals – Premier League goals. The pressure is on to deliver the goods.
