Claudio Ranieri: Near-miss manager in no mood for Leicester title talk

If an audience with Claudio Ranieri is reflective of the atmosphere in the Leicester dressing room, then we begin to understand how the secret of the team’s success might just rest with him.

Ridicule has morphed into reverence. Ranieri greeted each member of the media with a handshake ahead of today’s barnburner at the Etihad, even the ones who were not Midlands-beat specific and known to him.

Coloured by the fiasco as head coach with Greece and by his first exposure to English football at Chelsea, where he acquired the pejorative label “tinkerman”, it has taken longer than it might for the prejudice against Ranieri to break down.

Now, as he pointed out, everybody is a tinkerman. Though Ranieri has never won a premier championship in any country as a coach, he is not without merit – most impressive perhaps being the regeneration of Roma in 2010 when they missed the title by two points. “When I arrived in Rome, [it] was after two matches, Roma had zero points. If they had maybe one or two points, we win the league. That is life. Afterwards people said ‘Ranieri lost the title’, but I didn’t have Roma from the beginning of the season. There is a big difference.”

Ranieri is expert at deflection and diffusion. Attempts to illicit a killer quote to light up a back page are smothered in colloquial English and jest.

Asked if he has raised the issue of winning the title within the confines of the dressing room, Ranieri replied: “You want to know if I told something to my players? This is a secret.”

OK, Claudio, have you thought of telling them? “Ah, you are bad boys.” Laughter all round. “Look, I understand your questions. I would like to say ‘yes we can’ but I’m not Obama.” More guffaws.

The only time he was close to falling into the headline trap was after this roll call of near misses. “I won the title in the third and second divisions [in Italy]. I arrived second at Juventus, second in Rome, second in Monaco.” So it has to be first this time surely? “I don’t know. Maybe, sooner or later.”

Ranieri does not need telling how much is riding on today’s City fixture. “My players are very intelligent. Maybe everybody believes in something special and they are working towards something special.

“It is an open match. They want to win to catch us, we want to win to go away. Maybe it’s a draw. All the people understand we are doing something extraordinary so far. What happens in the future, I don’t know. We are giving a fantastic gift to our fans.”

One final attempt to draw Ranieri into an incendiary claim by likening his team to Barcelona was met with the certainty of a Jamie Vardy strike. “Calm, calm, calm,” he said, like a father quietening the puppy-like enthusiasm of the son. “Our fans must dream. We must play with our feet on the ground.”

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2003-04 (with Chelsea)

Finished 11 points off Arsenal in final season at Stamford Bridge.

2008-09 (Juventus)

Ten points behind Internazionale.

2009-10 (Roma)

Behind Inter again, two points off Jose Mourinho’s side.

2013-14 (Monaco)

Ended nine points behind PSG.