The story of the 2015/16 Premier League season has been, indisputably, the miraculous rise of Leicester City.

Many people view it as exactly that – a miracle. But the Foxes’ incredible campaign hasn’t taken place in a vacuum and their shock title bid isn’t completely isolated from the 19 sides accompanying them in the Premier League table. The fortunes of every club are interlinked, whilst every season is affected by its predecessor and goes on to affect its successor.

So the idea that we’re watching a once-in-a-lifetime footballing moment is superficial. It’s time we started to realise what Leicester City’s once inconceivable table-topping feat tells us about an ever-changing Premier League, where the pressure is larger and the diversity of quality is smaller than ever before.

Some have used Leicester’s season as a barometer of whether the level of talent in the Premier League has worsened over the last few years. The failure of English clubs in the Champions League, coupled with two of the last three PFA Player of the Year winners swapping the Premier League for the El Clasico rivalry, certainly adds weight to the argument.

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But once again, I find that analysis a little too simplistic. Just because Leicester are unexpectedly performing above expectations doesn’t mean the Premier League has gotten better or worse. It does show, however, much like the Premier League’s incarnation in 1992, that the balance of power in the top flight is changing and it’s now tougher than ever before.

The first point of interest is Chelsea’s equally unexpected fall from grace this season – not too long ago, people were talking about a dynasty in west London – and to a lesser extent, Liverpool and Manchester United’s. Their struggles this season created a gap at the table’s summit that Leicester suddenly found themselves filling. Credit to Claudio Ranieri’s side for taking advantage, for remaining impervious to pressure and keeping their momentum going.

But this is nothing unusual and we’ve seen similar plights in recent campaigns. When Manchester United plummeted to a seventh-place finish under David Moyes during the 2013/14 season, Liverpool were the club who emerged from the shadows to take their rivals’ habitual spot in the title race. Southampton threatened to the same last term, but fell away in the second half of the campaign.

Compare that to the situation even just a couple of seasons prior, where Chelsea, Man City, Man United and Arsenal filled the top four in consecutive terms, or even to the good old days of the traditional ‘big four’. Back then, it was inconceivable that anybody could encroach upon Chelsea, United, Arsenal & Liverpool’s dominance and it eventually took around £1billion of spending on City’s part to do so.

But now the situation is wholly different and the Premier League’s top clubs are under more pressure than ever. Four, five, six or even eight teams – depending on which pundit you put your faith in most – could realistically win the league and the reporting from the media has only increased in its hyperbole. So when things go wrong at a big club, like they have at Chelsea this season, they go very wrong very quickly.

A few years ago, that perhaps wouldn’t have been the case – at least, not to such extremes. Take 2011/12 for instance, when Chelsea spent nine months floundering under Andre Villas-Boas but still finished in sixth place. But now, a few disappointing results at the start of the season, admittedly combined other factors, has snowballed the Blues’ season into the worst since Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003.

That’s partly because the quality gap in the Premier League is continually shrinking. It has always been revered as one of the most competitive top flights in world football but is now completely unrivalled in that regard. It’s gone from being a marketing soundbite of the Premier League product to an unquestionable reality.

Leicester play testament to that but once again, it’s no miraculous occurrence. Premier League revenues are only increasing and the transfer budgets of the lesser clubs are now double, triple or even quadruple the amount of their Serie A, La Liga or Bundesliga counterparts. Newcastle United, for example, outspent the entire of the German top flight during the January transfer window.

So all of a sudden, teams like Leicester have the quality to capitalise on any hesitance from the bigger clubs – and it’s not only the Foxes who are doing so. They’re riding the crest of a wave that over the last few years has also included Southampton, Crystal Palace, Watford and Stoke City.

What do Leicester, therefore, tell us about the Premier League, and what does their title bid suggest will happen in the future? Well, with the top flight about to embark upon a record-breaking £8billion television deal, seasons like Leicester’s could become a common occurrence. Perhaps not every year, perhaps not to the same degree, but nonetheless, it is clear that the balance in the Premier League is shifting in favour of the rank and file.

Could Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho reassert some big club dominance next season on either side of the Manchester rivalry? It’s possible. But in addition to the aforementioned factors, Leicester have helped create an underdog mindset that the rest of the Premier League’s ‘lesser clubs’ won’t be forgetting quickly.

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