One of the things that annoys me more than most things is not receiving credit for the good work you do. This summer, I, among many other fans, have been eagerly anticipating Leicester City's first match back in the top-flight of English football. Having stormed the Championship last season racking up a monumental 31 wins and 102 points.
Despite, last season's dominance, Leicester, as well as being plugged as potential dark horses for next season have been slated for an immediate return to the second tier too. I would be lying if it didn't irritate me that my team has been written off by some (mostly Forest fans) before they've even really been assessed.
It's fair to say that the Premier League can be a self-appreciating, internal, self-obsessed division. Fans of the division may not know an awful not about a rejuvenated, well-prepared Leicester side that is entering the division with a century of points, a circumstance that has never ended in immediate relegation. That's probably why, when asked why many think Leicester will go down they can't really give a reason - I'm certainly yet to hear or read a compelling one.
It baffles me that pre-season predictions have seen us placed below both Burnley and Queens Park Rangers who failed catastrophically to keep pace with City last season - nine and twenty-two points below respectively. I could forgive this view point, if either club had blown the division out of the water with their transfer dealings but you would be hard-pressed to argue that was the case. These people have written us off simply because we've just come up, and even we don't have the spending power of the hooped West Londoners (even though it hasn't helped them much thus far). Our dominance last season makes it much less likely that we'll go down next season, statistically at least. But many fans choose to overlook that.
However, the most annoying critique of City heading in to the 2014-15 campaign has got to be the comparisons of owners Vichai and Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha with Cardiff City's egomaniac boss Vincent Tan. Simply put they're nothing alike. Leicester manager Nigel Pearson has been awarded with great leniency and faith from his Thai bosses during the Foxes horrendous slump in the 2012-13 season despite intense media pressure to give him the axe. Vincent Tan changes managers more than he changes his clothes. Too, the owners of Leicester City have invested in every aspect of the club, they don't spend frivolously now like the did in Sven's era, despite the media's best attempts to paint Vichai's comments to suggest such at a press conference in May.
More importantly, the Foxes chairman and vice-chairman respect the culture of the club, vowing never to change the club's crest, colours or identity unlike Mr. Tan who seems more interested in goading his club's fans in to fisticuffs than rewarding their support like the Srivaddhanaprabhas. It's hard to imagine that people are actually paid to try and lazily fabricate this laughable stereotype.
This may simply sound like the bitter ramblings of a big-headed fan of a newly-promoted Premier League side but it shouldn't be perceived as such. In spite of my staunch belief that Leicester will offer more than survival next season, I concede that there is a chance we could go down and people thinking it is not ludicrous at all. However, all I ask is, if you want to write us off - at least have a bloody good reason.