5 European teams who have surprised everyone this season

#3 Leicester City

The champions are facing the threat of relegation

‘Second season syndrome’ is an all-too-popular occurrence in the Premier League but that usually relates to clubs which have successfully staved off the drop one campaign, but failed miserably to do so the next; it shouldn’t apply to previous winners of the division. This term Leicester City have already lost more than four times as many games as they did in their title-winning campaign last year, having won less than a quarter of the games they did in 2015/16.

This may have been what we expected had there been a mass exodus of personnel and had Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez departed, but the fact that the duo, alongside ‘Tinkerman’ Claudio Ranieri, stayed adds further mystery to why the club are performing so poorly this campaign. It was universal opinion that the Foxes wouldn’t come close to winning the league again this season; other teams had recruited too much, but for them to find themselves in a relegation dogfight is very strange indeed.

Leicester sit just two points and three places above rock-bottom Sunderland going into this weekend’s set of games. Last term they compensated for a less than brilliant defence with a swashbuckling frontline but all that energy seems to have been sapped dry and believe it or not, the club are now just 7/4 to go down according to SkyBet.