Football, as they say, is a funny old game, though none of the Premier League's traditional top-four will be feeling particularly amused this season.
It's hard to believe but it really does look like Leicester City are going to win the title. Not only that, but their fiercest challenger appears to be Tottenham Hotspur, while West Ham United are battling it out with a hapless Arsenal, a toothless Manchester City, and a dreary Manchester United for a Champions League spot.
Leicester City! Tottenham Hotspur! West Ham United!
Remarkable stuff.
United had been toiling away in the Europa League spots prior to their back-to-back victories over City and Everton and, let's face it, in the Europa League spots they will probably remain, a fallen giant plummeting further and further into the abyss, struck down by a strange lethargy they cannot shake off.
And this lack of vim is a big part of the problem, not just with United but with their city rivals, who are also having a season to forget, a jaded and often embarrassingly half-hearted joke of a team.
Leicester, in contrast, are a cracking side, a joy to watch, and few would begrudge their likeable manager, Claudio Ranieri, a Premier League winner's medal come May. Yet, Leicester's position at the Premier League's summit should cause the league's usual heavyweights to take a long hard look at themselves.
Pound for pound, do Leicester have that many better players than City or United, or Arsenal or Chelsea for that matter? You could argue the case both ways - and the likes of Riyad Mahrez, N'Golo Kanté and Jamie Vardy have been revelations this term - but what is irrefutable is that Leicester's players, along with those of Spurs and West Ham, have simply wanted it more, been better organised and, crucially, played with the kind of energy and enthusiasm that should make their more illustrious, better paid rivals hang their heads in shame.
Energy! United fans must have forgotten what that looks like in a football team. A club famed for attacking, intense football now stutters and wheezes through games. Ferguson's best teams would attack in irresistible waves. Van Gaal's barely cause a ripple. So often this season United will break out of defence but, instead of streaming forward in numbers, check back and ponder the meaning of life while their opponents regroup. So often they will send crosses into a penalty box with one solitary United player in it, surrounded by grateful defenders.
City, for their part, have pretty much collapsed since Pep Guardiola was announced as their knight in shining armour. The theory goes that this is because they are being led, in Manuel Pellegrini, by a dead man walking, but their form has, in truth, been at best sketchy all season. Like United, they seem incapable of putting a decent run together and, like United, whenever they face opponents who are up for the fight, they fall apart, unable or unwilling to put in the kind of shift Leicester and Spurs' players do on a weekly basis.
Energy is, of course, not enough to land silverware on its own. Still, without it, you may as well not turn up and, when you do not have the resources and financial muscle of the big boys, you have to compensate somehow. It may sound terribly English but, it turns out, such simple but effective attributes as spirit, heart and good old-fashioned sweat can make a huge difference.
Leicester, Spurs and West Ham have strained sinews and burst lungs in order to fill the void left by United and City's ineptitude and Chelsea's implosion. No doubt Arsenal fans will scratch their heads for years to come, wondering why it wasn't them but, let's face it, the story of their season is like a scratched record, their perennial late-winter/early spring crises comically predictable.
No, the fact of the matter is that Leicester, Spurs and West Ham, this season, have been like a group of garishly dressed dancers that have burst into a house-party, their vitality and lust for life too much for the old boys to handle. Chelsea long since passed out in the toilets, Arsenal are experiencing their usual queasiness after it all went to their heads back in January, while the two Manchester clubs keep waking occasionally from their slumbers to laugh at each other, before realising that they themselves are in an equally sorry state.
It's probably safe to assume that, with Guardiola on his way to City, Jose Mourinho tipped to take over at United in the summer, and Antonio Conte going to Chelsea, an injection of energy is the least we can expect from the big-hitters next term.
For now, however, we should probably just sit back and continue to marvel at the boundless energy of these three upstarts and, if Leicester really do go on to win the title, joined next season by Spurs and West Ham in the Champions League, give ourselves a pinch and wonder at what a simple, beautiful, funny old game this is.
