Leicester City’s Champions League deja vu casts Brendan Rodgers as the nearly man yet again
This has, on the whole, been another outstanding season for Leicester and their manager, Brendan Rodgers.
Although the pain of having a Champions League place wrenched from their grasp on the last day of the season will still be acute, any Leicester fan would surely have taken fifth place in the Premier League and a first ever FA Cup if offered at the start of the campaign.
And that, in an industry where managers are assigned an almost mythical level of influence, has naturally only increased the stock of Rodgers. Yet it seems fair to wonder whether there is a pattern emerging in his career.
Leicester’s final-day heartache on Sunday was, of course, a repeat of last season, when they also lost a top-four spot at the last possible moment.
You will probably have heard the stat already but it bears repeating: no club spent more days in the Champions League places over the past two seasons than the Foxes. And yet on both occasions they could not finish the job.
If managers get the acclaim for all that is goodabout a team then they must also carry the can when it goes awry.
So to have had a top-four place and let it slip away in near identical fashion two years running raises questions about Rodgers’ ability to get his team over the line.
Were Rodgers and Leicester too cautious?
Of course, Leicester had no right to be in the Champions League qualifying spots in the first place.
Their wage bill is far smaller than that of the teams that did make the top four, and also less than those of Tottenham, Arsenal and Everton, who they finished above.
Missing out, it could be argued, is merely the natural order being restored. The fact that Rodgers got Leicester to the brink is still a remarkable feat.
But this is not the first time (or indeed even the second) that a Rodgers team has let a magnificent achievement slide away just as it appeared to be within touching distance.
His Liverpool side that took the Premier League by storm in 2013-14 is remembered more for capitulating when the end of their 24-year wait for a top-flight title was in sight than it is for some breathtaking football that showcased Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling in blistering form and gleaned more than 100 goals.
To err once is human and twice is careless, or so it goes. Three times? Perhaps there is something more fundamental at play.
Is it that Rodgers’ teams have a tendency to lose their nerve? Where Liverpool paid the price for being too gung-ho – notably in their costly 3-3 draw at Crystal Palace – Leicester appear too cautious.
It was notable that, rather than try to increase their lead and settle the result against Tottenham on Sunday, they withdrew each time they went ahead, giving the initiative back to Spurs with predictable results.
Whatever the reasons, and although this remains a season of celebration for Leicester and Rodgers, they are in danger of being cast as nearly men.
And that will surely give any would-be suitors pause for thought before committing to a pursuit of the Northern Irishman.