The mentality behind Leicester City's season MOTD: The Premier League Show

This week we're in Leicester, home to the current Premier League

champions, who are in the midst of a tumultuous season

This week, I'll be joined by Dion Dublin and comedian

Mark Watson, as we try to get to the bottom of what's

Also on the show, with the Foxes now in deep trouble at the wrong end

of the table, Matthew Syed takes an in-depth look into the psychology

We hear from Jurgen Klopp ahead of Liverpool's clash

And The Vamps visit West Brom for a photo shoot with a difference.

But first, Claudio Ranieri was sacked by Leicester

this time last week, and since then it's been

an extraordinary seven days in the Premier League.

and city football club in an Company with its first-team football manager

Claudio Ranieri -- Leicester City Football Club I thought last season

when I was sacked as a champion, it was a giant negative thing, now I

realise it was peanuts for me. Huge decisions in 2016-17, Brexit, Donald

Trump, Ranieri. I think there has never been a bigger when for us this

season than this one. COMMENTATOR: Romelu Lukaku! Scored

by Diego Costa, and that should wrap up the points for Chelsea. Harry

Kane! He just doesn't miss. End towards Kane. Another Harry Kane

hat-trick. Given away by Wijnaldum, Jamie Vardy, straight through, great

chance, 1-0, Leicester! Danny Drinkwater, what is go! Superb play,

and a lovely goal. It is absolutely brilliant from Leicester City. Three

points in the bag, out of the bottom three.

And joining us in the stylish surroundings of the Turkey Cafe

are Leicester-born Dion Dublin and comedian and

Dies, we just there, the most incredible 70s. Your favourite

moment? -- Guys. The strikers in the Premier League, scoring when they

want to score goals, Zlatan, Harry Kane... It is just a personal

issue... LAUGHTER

I cannot sign him because this is only a draft league so each player

can only have one affiliation. All I am saying is every time Kane scores,

you know, it is wonderful he is doing so well, wonderful player to

watch, and he's so young, but it is wrecking my season with Patricks

like that. Back to you, and my old colleague Alan Hansen was also

saying is this because the strikers are doing so well or the defenders

are doing so badly? The strikers are doing what they are supposed to,

scoring goals then the work afterwards... Complete strikers?

Yes, forgetting about... Since Leicester's restorative win

over Liverpool on Monday night, debate has raged about the mindset

of Leicester's players and the influence of their

now departed manager. We asked Matthew Syed

to delve deeper. COMMENTATOR: It is Riyad Mahrez!

What is go. Leicester City are the Premier League champions! The fans

are dreaming. Keep dreaming. Success is intoxicating, magical, but it is

also dangerous. Because it has the tendency to subtly numb the mind of

the drive and ambition that are the cornerstone of success. Leicester

City's triumph in the Premier League was unquestionably the most

incredible sporting story of my lifetime, but the battle for

survival will ask the most searching questions of our club reeling from

this extraordinary turnaround -- a club. Leicester City, the first

reigning champions to lose their first game of the next season since

1989. It has just not been Leicester's day. Leicester's

miserable away form continues. And Leicester City concede four goals in

the Premier League for the second match in a row. After their stunning

triumph, Leicester players received a fleet of brand-new sports cars,

large pay rises, adulation. The team of the year is... Leicester City.

APPLAUSE Absolutely, they deserved it, but

there path from a claim to complacency is short, and the

implications can be fatal. Leicester City could potentially sleepwalk

into a full-blown relegation battle. People have enjoyed the success too

much, it has gone to their heads, not doing what got them to the top

and the very first place. Get into the top is difficult, but staying

there is even more difficult. It has been some fall for the champions.

How far will they drop? Looking at Leicester over the course of the

season, the majority of the players who played last season have played

lots of games, and I look at them and think, you can lose form, make

mistakes, but can you every single time you play what off that pitch

and city yourself, I couldn't have given anything else? I would say to

them, I don't think they could answer yes to that question.

Confidence is very important in sport, probably the most important

thing, believe in yourself and belief as a team and when it goes a

little and you start losing, it can be a slip result. Lack of form,

confidence and belief, probably a way of playing, looking at each

other, thinking, you used to do that last year, you used to do that, they

are not doing it. You have that hunger, desire, the will to succeed,

because people know who you are, what you are and what you are about.

You need the determination to see, I will keep getting better, keep doing

what I was doing, what got me to the top, and not enough of the Leicester

players have done that. COMMENTATOR: It is a long long way

back for Leicester now. The defining characteristic of Leicester last

season was an astonishing collective resolve, but when complacency takes

hold and things start to go wrong, the tendency is to blame other

people. Leicester City has tonight parted company with its first-team

manager Claudio Ranieri. What seemed an impossible dream... Nine months

after he defeated the 5000-1 odds, the man who achieved the dream has

been dismissed. If it can happen to one of the best managers we ever

had, choosing Mourinho, at Chelsea, then it can happen to anyone -- Jose

Mourinho. It is difficult to think about the Leicester situation,

player power and everything, I suspect there is some truth in those

rumours, but those players should look at themselves. They have not

performed anything like they did last season. Players are now armed

with a three or four your contract worth millions and millions and

millions of pounds. You cannot fire players. You can sack manager and if

you get four, five players in the dressing room who do not like you as

a manager then that manager is in trouble. Players love an excuse,

they love to blame someone else. They may or may not have gone to the

owners and said, you know, the manager is doing this, we are not

happy with this, that the other, it takes the pressure away from them.

Players have always done that when things are going badly with the

team. Let's get the manager out and it takes the off us. -- takes the

pressure off us. The incessant focus on the manager is one of the

defining fallacies of modern football. It is players ultimately

win or lose matches, it is players to capture the title or save a club

from relegation. We have always made too much of the manager, and whilst

obviously great managers will make a slight difference and bad ones will

make a difference, most managers pretty much know what they are

doing. So it is generally about players. I like to think I have

played for the majority of the top managers but if you ask them secret

in terms of managers they would say, it is dead simple, it is all about

players -- I have played for two or three of the top managers. The 111

bad players and a good manager or a living good players and a bad

manager? I know what I would just -- do you want 11 bad players. He the

captain of the ship, and win trophies are won, will be "That is

the Mourinho way." Players need to believe and follow their manager,

run through brick walls for them, but they need to thing, I feel

something from you that shows me you're the one to follow. As far as

I am concerned, when it comes to them taking the negativity, it falls

in line with praise for the manager. If players do not perform week in,

week out it tends to fall on the manager 's head. When you are

winning, team spirit is simple. Cohesion, in the dressing room or

anywhere else, is the most natural thing in the world. It is when

things are going wrong you have to demonstrate a different kind of

character. I can remember 20 years ago when I started playing, if

things were not going right in our dressing room at Southampton,

Blackburn, Newcastle, then you would know about it. There would actually

be almost fights in the dressing rooms after the game if things were

not going correctly. Now, I am not saying that is the right way to do

things but I know it got things sorted out when there were problems.

If you are losing games, in the dressing room, you obviously need

strong people, you have to have a captain who is a leader, then you

look at the make-up of the squad, the mentality. You just hope there

is enough in the dressing room that can galvanise the other players and

actually say, come on, guys, we are better than this. You do not win

titles without characters in your team, you just don't, and I think

Leicester City have a team of characters. They have to fight, they

have been there before. I would say at least 90% of this squad were rock

bottom a few years ago and they got themselves out of it.

COMMENTATOR: This has to be the greatest escape from relegation the

Premier League has ever known. It is not like it is new to them. They can

deal with it. This time last year Leicester were three points clear at

the top and ten games from the title. Now they are in the bottom

three and without a manager. Players have a big responsibility for how

they play, train, and how they respond diversity on the field of

play. Leadership from the manager is of course crucial, but leadership

quality amongst the players is imperative when you are fighting for

survival. COMMENTATOR: Great chance! 1-0,

Leicester! Leicester have enough talent in their team to pull out of

a relegation fight and I felt that before Claudio was given the push,

and I still feel it now. Drinkwater, what a goal! It is no-win for them

anyway, because of they start performing their people ask where

their attitude was before, and if they do not we will know they were

to blame anyway. Absolutely brilliant from Leicester City! It

will be interesting to watch their performances between now and end the

season. If they go out, if they show more hunger and desire, if they

shall a beggar will to win than they have for the vast majority of the

season, then it will be pretty damning on the players.

COMMENTATOR: Leicester City look like a completely different team

tonight. Crisis, what crisis? What really struck me about

Matthew's piece there is how a lot of your fellow ex-pros, a few years

out of the job, conceding things they perhaps would not have done as

a player. Would you go along with the majority of that, especially

from Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker? It is the players who dictate how a

football club is not so much run but the feeling, and how things are

getting on on the pitch relating to how it is off the pitch, and at the

moment, what Alan and Gary are saying, fair enough. You have to

look in the mirror and ask, am I really giving blood, sweat and tears

at the moment? I think some are and some are not. That would not be

great, to be fair. Mark, you speak as a fan, not necessarily of

Leicester, but should you not do that in spate of the person at the

top, whether you love, detest or adore them? All fans want to feel

the players we got every morning with that desperation to win, the

same as being a fan, but the answer is you do not know if players are

thinking that. You cannot tell exactly where the passion comes

from. It seems very fragile thing about Leicester. You can tell how

fragile it is because we have Leicester themed coffees here, not a

joke, it is true! LAUGHTER Ranieri's image is on it.

It was. Every step I take... I think it is really strange that the mood

in the camp can change so quickly and that is clearly beyond the remit

of the manager. And watching social media during that Liverpool game the

other night there was a real mixture of feelings from people, this is

disgraceful, look how hard they are trying now and they did not do this

for Ranieri. Is there another site that Ranieri changed? For a player,

to have a manager who may have changed, then, you know, a lot of

players do not have it in their head, they are not the sharpest

tools, footballers, and I can vouch for it because I used to be one...

But when it comes to being a professional footballer, you need

the boundaries. You want the manager to say, you do that, you do that,

you do that. I have to ask, what control does Craig Shakespeare have

over that, what influence as he had in the dressing room? That comes

down to what was missing last year, while the softer or harder this

year? Something has changed dramatically in the dressing room at

Leicester for them to have gone from being brilliant, outstanding, last

year, to know. Maybe he stopped doing that bell thing. Or the free

pizzas... It is astonishing how often replacing the manager at least

gives you a couple of wins, interesting why that would be. The

interesting thing about this group of players is that they all went

through a relegation fight before, so they have known both those

extreme positions. You have been through relegation scraps, you have

come through them - are you convinced they can dig deep into

that mindset? I have no worries about Leicester at all, they will

not go down, because they have the mentality that you were talking

about, the fighting mentality, roll their sleeves up, let's

get-together, do everything we need to do to get out of this mess. In

terms of manager, mark, where are you on the kind of person that you

need to have at the helm? It is hard to know what a new manager coming in

would be like now, because they are in a strange position, taking over

the champions, but at the same time they are in a relegation battle. The

Leicester fans must have no idea what their expectations are meant to

be at this point! From relegation to the title to relegation in that time

period. And the manager will be playing in the Champions League

knockout game as well. Very odd situation, no obvious person to dig

out results, it will come down to the players. Leicester will be fine.

Dion has said, it is between the other clubs now! Do you know all of

the results?! I will talk to you later!

Liverpool versus Arsenal is the big game in the Premier League

this weekend, with Jurgen Klopp's side just a point behind

Juliette Ferrington has been to Merseyside to talk to the gaffer.

COMMENTATOR: Problems, problems, problems! Leicester is the worst

game we have played this season. It is a situation, we have to take it,

we have to learn off it and change. 17 weeks in, how much time do you

give yourself to be successful? That is the problem! It is not that I

would decide only about this, but I am very, very positive about the

whole thing. But how much time I can get for what I want, I have no idea.

But I am in closed talks, if your question leads in this direction,

with our ownership, so we are all fine. What would be success now?

Qualifying for the Champions League would be big success, 100%,

qualifying, yeah, for the Europa League, I am not sure if I could

sell it as a success. But it would be OK. A step in the right

direction. But it is too early to say what would be a success, because

we have to maybe learn from the last games very, very quickly, that is

the job always. Are people right about your defence? That seems to be

the biggest talking point. Look, we had to change a lot, that is the

truth, especially in the centre half position, did we concede too much?

Yes, absolutely. If you have one more centre half, obviously it was

not the number, who was fit. Is Arsenal the perfect game for you to

bounce back? Hopefully, yeah, hopefully! First of all, we have to

make sure we are really good against Arsenal. If you want to stay in this

region of the table, and we need to bounce back against Arsenal, that is

how it is, what is the alternative? The alternative is, they played

really well, and against the big teams we don't do this any more, so

that is a joke, we have no alternative, and we have to deliver,

we have to, again, to show a reaction, and hopefully we can.

Years under a lot of pressure at the moment, they have lost against

Burnley, Bournemouth, Swansea. -- he is under. I don't know, I don't know

what he has changed, but the team don't seem to be playing that pretty

football anymore. When they are trying to play it, they are giving

the ball away, not consistent, not working as hard. I believe he has

got great players, but I think other teams have sussed out how to beat

Liverpool, and they are playing Liverpool at their own game. He has

got an incredible fan club, there is huge love for him, which might

explain why seem to be getting the kind of catcalls that Brendan

Rodgers did when he had a better win percentage at this junction. It is

interesting, I know Liverpool fans who were always on Rodgers' case,

even when they were close to winning the league. Liverpool are different

from other clubs in some respects, the manager has to have some kind of

bond with the fans that goes beyond the results. I don't know if it is a

specifically Liverpool thing, but they set a very high value on

playing in the Liverpool mould, on wit! Klopp has all the right things,

the lovely glasses, he seems really nice! It has been a long honeymoon

period, partly because they have played some wonderful football, but

no doubt part of it is because he seems like the right fit for what

Liverpool fans one. How long that will ask, if they don't reach the

top four, and I still think they will... I think that is fans in

general, even though Liverpool are not getting the best results, if the

fans see he is still on side with the players, the fans love to see

that togetherness. I will be interested to see how he gets on.

Top four finish? I think they will be fine, they will get top four,

regardless if they don't win anything else. But Leicester

definitely safe? And Liverpool definitely in the top four, we are

starting to put the puzzle together, so Arsenal must finish fifth!

Not content with over-performing in the Premier League,

this season, West Bromwich Albion have been adding a unique musical

So we sent local boys The Vamps along to offer some input.

Hello, it is Connor and Brad from The Vamps, and we are at the West

Bromwich Albion training ground, news travels fast, and we have heard

through the grapevine that the boys are trying the pop star thing, that

is our game! But being the kind of lads we are, we have decided to give

them a few tips and tricks, let's see how they are getting on.

West Brom have a history of creating unusual match day programmes. This

season it is remakes of classic album covers. We are crashing the

latest photo shoot. It is nice for the flat!, the different programmes,

they can be very samey, so nice to have a collector's edition.

There is a nice synergy between a lot of the fans being huge music

fans as well, so nice to see their favourite players doing their

favourite musicians' album covers. We are doing David Bowie today. How

do you feel about that? We have got the paints!

Jonas nailing it there. How do you feel about being Genesis?

That is quality! If you ever go solo...

We will have a go at our second album cover, Matt, you do that,

Jonas, if you do our drummer, also a very tall lad, with the hands, I

think we can nail it, do you reckon? Perfect. I am worried you guys are

nailing it! Now we are going to be doing the

youth team, doing Madness, and you can tell they are all very

comfortable doing this! How are you feeling, lads? Awkward! Perfect!

Oh, mate! We have seen your album covers, we have been very impressed

us aided and bit worried for our jobs. But we have learned a few tips

and checks of our own, Premier League, watch out! That is what we

do! Thank you very much to The Vamps,

and West Brom as well, a neat idea. It is cool to do that, and the

players seem to want to get involved - in some album covers, hopefully

not all of them, I have seen some dodgy ones! Everyone knows your

musical heritage, which album would you choose? If it was me, my

favourite album of all time is by Stevie Wonder, but I don't think I'm

worthy, so I would go for De La Soul, the sunflowers. Because of the

artwork? Obviously! Mark? For West Brom, there are various Madonna

albums, I think Tony Pulis on a saucy one, he would be anxious to do

that. If it was me, I would replicate Stevie Wonder as well, but

I don't know if he would go with that! I think it is London Calling,

smashing the guitar, but it is not really my personality. Is your more

natural home Simon and Garfunkel? I think it probably is, if I was

smashing a guitar, going through my head, this is expensive! Primal

Screen, that would be good. Before we go, let's take a look

at this weekend's fixtures. League Cup winners Manchester United

entertain Bournemouth in Saturday's early kick-off,

and there are five three o'clock games which big ramifications

at the bottom of the table. Sunday sees Tottenham take

on Everton, and Manchester City travel to Sunderland,

with a London derby between West Ham and Chelsea to round off

the weekend on Monday. Thank you so much, guys, you're

coffee looks nothing like the personalities they started off, the

Vardy phase has totally disappeared! Thank you very much for watching, we

will be back next week on BBC. Bye-bye.

seen through the eyes of the fans and stars.