Leicester's demolition of Manchester City: How it happened, what it means

The soft opening goal from a set piece said it all: City are somehow allergic to proper defending - unless Dr Vincent Kompany is present to inoculate his team-mates against diseases such as headless chicken pox and temporary blindness.

[FULL MATCH REPORT: Brilliant Leicester destroy Man City to go six points clear]

In retrospect, it could have been seen a mile off: the talented but ageing Martin Demichelis is notoriously slow, and up against an attack force who are notoriously fast there was always a chance it could end in tears.

The real surprise, however, was the manner of the goals: while Riyad Mahrez's strike was a fine piece of open play skill, Rob Huth's two strikes both came from set pieces - confusing. While you'd not back Demichelis to chase down a sensational player ten years his junior, you would have thought that this veteran campaigner would at least have the nous to stand in the right place when balls were being sent in to the box. But that's City's defence all over - and indeed City all over. Baffling.

Leicester aren't the first to take advantage of these failings - Liverpool's 4-1 win at the Etihad in November springs to mind. But what's arguable most surprising is that City haven't yet found a way to stop their flaws costing them, just as nobody has found a way to counter Leicester's devastatingly direct attacking theat.

The abuse that the Ivory Coast midfielder receives on social media for appearing to not give a **** about what happens to his team often seems wide of the mark, and even offensive at times.

It's hardly Toure's fault if his natural screensaver face and characteristic lope make him look lackadaisical; he clearly isn't, simply because hard work always has to underpin great talent to produce sustained, long-term success. Just ask the most gifted players of the lot: there are countless stories of how much effort Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo put in to their football. To suggest that Toure is anything less than a model pro is ludicrous.

[BEST TWEETS: City’s suicidal defending, Wes Morgan the new Beckenbauer]

Yet even a model pro can have a bad day - and boy, did Toure have a stinker or what? And when he has a stinker, City tend to have one too. At times in the past David Silva has been able to step in as the creator-in-chief, but he's not looked great since his return from injury. And nobody else seems to have the ability to step it up a bit.

Before Saturday's game, Manchester City had the best home record in the league, while Leicester City had the best away record. Yet it was Leicester who improved their stats, the Foxes now boasting 28 points from 13 away matches this season (won 8, drawn 4, lost 1). By any yardstick that is a staggering record.

Earlier this week, social media went crazy for a guy who, in a drunken haze while on holiday this summer, popped a fiver on Leicester to win the league at 5,000-1. He's not the only one: since then, several bookies have revealed that they took punts at those odds, with Ladbrokes even taking fifty quid from a chap who presumably is related to Nostradamus himself.

Rather incredibly, Leicester's odds were still 300-1 when they first topped the league last November. Arsenal had a chance to usurp them that day, but failed to do so - and Leicester were trimmed to just under 200-1.

Those odds have continued to tumble as Ranieri's men have continued to impress. And on Saturday, five minutes before full-time, an email popped into the Eurosport Truths inbox from a major bookie: for the first time this season Leicester are favourites to win the 2015-16 title, at 7/4.

Frankly, on Saturday's evidence, that still looks like a pretty good deal. Six points clear with 13 matches is an eminently blowable lead, but Leicester looked outstandingly clinical in beating City. If anything they look more likely to end the season seven or eight points clear than they do to be caught.

Leicester City were written off as relegation certainties in August. They were given no chance of survival - particularly given that they'd been bottom of the league at Christmas the season before, and had summarily dismissed the manager who'd engineered a genuinely miraculous escape.

But a greater miracle proved to be in the offing. When they appointed Claudio Ranieri, a man known and loved but with a reputation on these shores as an affable buffoon, it was written off as the worst kind of crazy decision by fresh club owners who clearly didn't understand the game. In other words, they'd hired a manager because they'd heard of him, rather than because he was the right man for the job.

Apart from anything, Ranieri had recently been fired from his previous job, a role in which he had modelled the Greek national team on the Greek national economy. It surely had to end in tears.

Now, they are in line to be the biggest surprise winners of a major football trophy since - ironically - Greece at Euro 2004.