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Ranieri has quite a task on here

July 24th, 2015 | Ian Carnaby's Racing News

We are just considering possible changes to the overall service and it may well be that racing takes precedence over anything else.

In fact, the Friday evening slot has not favoured other sports anyway of late and it is not quite time to make detailed football selections. In the Premier League I think Manchester united have bought very well and will press Chelsea all the way, but the main investments so far involve Sheffield United, who are fairly priced at 11/2 each-way to win League One, with Walsall the ‘saver’ bet at 35/1  –  win and place as well, of course.

Fighting a tremendous rearguard action to stay safe, as Leicester did last term, is highly creditable. Even so, it counts for very little when the new campaign opens up and, despite his strange  outbursts, Nigel Pearson was important to the Foxes and his absence will be keenly felt. Much though I admire the Racing Post’s sports pages, the stories to ignore often involve people being ‘backed off the boards’ to get a managerial post. That was the situation with Martin O’Neill, who was supposed to be a shoo-in to take over at the Kingpower Stadium with odds of 1 to 4 on offer at one stage.

The layers must smile to themselves when punters are sucked in. In fact, O’Neill himself never suggested he was hoping to take over and the job eventually went to ‘tinkerman’ Claudio Ranieri. The latter will never have had experience of a relegation battle in the toughest league in the world and looks a strange appointment to me. The Premier League this season will be an unrelenting struggle for several teams and a good start is vital. I fail to see why Leicester will shape up in that respect and they look likely relegation candidates at a rather short price.