Claudio Ranieri maintains Leicester City are underdogs this season, yet the Italian has increased the expectations for his players by saying his ambition is to surpass their title-winning points total. The Leicester manager explained that his objective every season is to win one point more than the previous campaign and he said nothing has changed since Leicester became Premier League champions.
Ranieri revealed his target after it was pointed out to him that Arsène Wenger recently said he felt guilty that Arsenal missed out on winning the league last season. “I’m thinking only about my club,” Ranieri said before Saturday’s home game against Arsenal. “I know we made 81 points [last season]. My ambition this season is to make 82 if possible. I don’t think about the others.”
Ranieri made it clear that trying to reach 82 points had nothing to do with hoping to defend the title. “No, I want this for my philosophy for life,” he said. “I made 81, I start to try and improve on last season. That is my ambition every time.”
It promises to be a tall order, with an opening-day defeat at Hull City the worst possible start. Ranieri fully expects this season to be much harder for Leicester and painted a picture of a club who are playing catch-up with the teams that have traditionally competed for the positions at the top end of the table.
“We are champions, but we are underdogs with a lot of big teams, because now we are building a team. City – how long? United – how long? Since [Sir Alex] Ferguson was manager – rebuild, rebuild. Tottenham, Liverpool – everybody. Slowly, slowly, we want to make very good building. So we are the underdog, it’s normal.”
