Leicester City will walk out at Stamford Bridge as champions on Sunday, the season will end with the muted drama of a battle for fourth place between two sides who expect much more, and then many expect things to get back to normal.
Next season the old order is expected to reassert its authority, to resume its position at the top and to ensure a year like this one never happens again.
There may never be another Leicester City, but much of what has occurred this season is in keeping with the decline in the standards of the top sides. There is greater competition in the Premier League, but recent title races have lacked an intensity, which used to be more common.
Leicester could yet win the title by 13 points if they beat Chelsea and Spurs and Arsenal lose their final fixtures. If they managed that, it would be the biggest winning margin since Manchester United finished 18 points clear in 2000.
United were the dominant side of that period, winning the league the following season by 10 points to claim their third title in a row. They managed to win three in a row again in 2009, but no club has retained the title since, highlighting the absence of an outstanding side that can conquer all before it.
Perhaps Leicester are about to embark on a period of dominance and it will turn out that the ease with which they have won the title revealed nothing but their excellence.
Yet a gap that big between first and second would also suggest that the mediocrity, which is part of every side in the Premier League, will not be easily cured.
Maybe Tottenham’s experience this year will be to their benefit under Mauricio Pochettino next season. When they moved within a few points of Leicester, Spurs might have felt that a chance like this would never come again, but they may look at the clubs who hope to challenge for the title next season and decide there is nothing to fear.
Leicester may not win the title by 13 points. It might only be seven. Chelsea, after all, have it all to play for. If they are to be guaranteed ninth in the table, they will need to beat Leicester City.
But it is Leicester they need to look to if they want to be considered contenders next year under Antonio Conte. Leicester finished 14th last season so Chelsea could hold onto this knowledge as they try and make a great leap and challenge next year.
They are regularly listed as one of the sides who will be strong again next season. Having dropped from champions to mid-table, they reflect a new fluidity in the league.
For many year, the top four was seen as a closed shop. Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool dominated, then City replaced Liverpool and things moved on efficiently with the rich getting richer, while the rest had a limit on their ambitions.
But things have changed and they may have changed with the departure of one individual. Between 2006 and 2013, Manchester United finished in the top two every season. If you wanted a competitive title race, you could depend on Alex Ferguson’s side, unless they were winning it themselves when competitiveness could be more unreliable.
United finished second three times in those seasons. They finished eight points behind Chelsea in 2006, one point behind them in 2010 and lost on goal difference to Manchester City in 2012.
In 2009, they won the league by four points and in 2011, they were nine points ahead of Chelsea. In 2013, United won the league by 11 points. A year later, Manchester United without Alex Ferguson finished seventh.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwSwt-NEyCs
But it is not just United who have been profoundly affected by Ferguson’s departure.
Since Ferguson left, there has been one close title race when Liverpool picked up four points from their last three matches to throw away the lead and lose the title by two points in 2014.
Other contenders have emerged, blinking into the light of a post-Alex Ferguson world, but without Ferguson, there has been nobody to drive a team with that desperate need to win.
“When United played under Sir Alex, the lads were always stepping out for two reasons,” Rene Meulensteen said last week, “to win and to entertain.”
Their desire to win became part of the entertainment and the desire to win was the key reason the lads stepped out. The entertainment was welcome, but it was never entertainment. It was something else. The relentlessness simply reflected the approach of the manager, the feeling that nothing should ever be considered lost.
The competitive spirit Ferguson engendered in his sides mattered more than anything. It was a philosophy that demanded victory; that made defeat seem like the domain only of the “c***s” it would be his duty to get rid of. This competitive desire influenced every aspect of English football.
Ferguson’s dominance may be only fully appreciated with time. Men like Arsene Wenger and Rafa Benitez had questioned his influence in English football, but it turns out Ferguson had soft power as well.
Wenger once competed with Ferguson, but those days are gone and he too is now involved in the management of decline. Arsenal will spend money in the summer, but the memory of how they failed this season won’t be erased by new signings.
Certainly Ferguson would have made Leicester feel under pressure in the final months of the season, even if Tottenham’s approach against Chelsea suggested that Pochettino may be determined that his side never let anything slip easily again.
Without him, the elite have slowed down. Without Ferguson, who could the Premier League turn to to ensure that surrender was not an option? Manuel Pellegrini?
Mourinho returned to England the summer Ferguson retired, but he couldn’t sustain a challenge to anyone but himself and, if he is appointed Manchester United’s manager, it remains to be seen if he can provide the momentum for that relentless approach.
City will have Pep Guardiola, who will at least deliver intensity. He will need it with a City squad that represents, more than any other, the days of decadence and decay. Jurgen Klopp will provide an intensely competitive tone, but Liverpool will need new players and they may have to manage expectations too.
For a generation, Ferguson influenced every title race. He drove Kevin Keegan to distraction and forced men like Wenger and Benitez to question everything. Nobody could rest.
Without him, the Premier League is a more unpredictable place where anything can happen. And without him, there is also no certainty that the establishment clubs will return to the top.
