Leicester City: Ranieri stays cool as title pressure mounts

All eyes will be on Premier League leaders Leicester City as they take on West Bromwich Albion tonight. With their Premier League rivals not in action until Wednesday, the Foxes have the chance to open up a five-point lead over second-placed Tottenham Hotspur and go eight points clear of Arsenal in third place.

But as the pressure mounts in the title race, so does the scrutiny and what might have appeared to be a routine assignment against a team lying 13th in the league has taken on a huge significance for manager Claudio Ranieri's team - particularly as they will be without midfield lynchpin N'Golo Kante, who has been ruled out for two games and will be replaced by Andy King.

"As the finish line comes into view, suddenly every hurdle increases in scale," says Jim White of the Daily Telegraph. Leicester's run-in looks "benevolent", but getting points against teams like the Baggies and thereafter Watford, Newcastle and Crystal Palace, will not be easy or pretty.

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Leicester needed three attributes to beat Norwich on Saturday - "tactical flexibility, managerial nerve, crowd support", says White, and they will need all three again tonight. But another win "will reveal, as much to themselves as to the rest of us, the depth of their title-winning credentials", he argues. "This is the one that will send out the loudest message about their grit, determination and drive."

But despite the pressure, Ranieri (pictured above) remains as removed from the chaos as ever, says Rory Smith of The Times. Leicester's campaign may be the unlikeliest story English football has produced for a century, but the Italian seems to view it all as "some sort of collective hysterical fantasy and he is the only man sane enough to see it".

The manager was his usual relaxed self at his latest press conference, although Smith detected a "subtle change, a slight shift in his messaging". Ranieri, he believes, may have begun the mind-games by installing Spurs as the new title favourites.

Ranieri even appeared to admit it, saying: "Everybody is speaking about Leicester and nobody is speaking about Tottenham."