Sir Alex Ferguson reveals WHEN he thinks Leicester will win the Premier League title

The Foxes can strengthen their grip on the trophy with a win over relegation-threatened Newcastle United on Monday night. Sir Alex Ferguson ...

The Foxes can strengthen their grip on the trophy with a win over relegation-threatened Newcastle United on Monday night.

Sir Alex Ferguson has tipped Leicester to win the Premier League title - and reckons they'll do it with several games to spare.

Sir Alex Ferguson believes Claudio Ranieri's Leicester will win the league at a canter

The Foxes are five points clear at the top with a game at home to relegation threatened Newcastle to come on Monday night.

The most unlikely title challengers in Premier League history have recorded wins over Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea this season and Ferguson is in no doubt as to whether they have the bottle to cross the finish line in first position come May.

In fact, Ferguson, who won 13 Premier League titles as Manchester United manager, thinks they'll have wrapped the title up even earlier than that.

Leicester face a tricky run-in in the final three matches of the season, with trips to Chelsea and Manchester United on the fixture list as well as the visit of Everton to the King Power Stadium.

Ferguson reckons Leicester will have the title wrapped up before the end of April

However, Ferguson reckons Claudio Ranieri's men will already be in celebratory mood by the time those matches come round.

"Of course they can [win it]," Ferguson said at a Cheltenham Festival preview lunch. "I believe they will win with three games to spare."

The Scot hailed Leicester midfielder N'Golo Kante as the Premier League's best player this season "by a long way", as well as singing the praises of Foxes head of recruitment and assistant manager Steve Walsh, who unearthed gems such as Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy and Kante for minimal fees.

The Scot believes midfielder N'Golo Kante has been the Premier League's best player this season

"The most influential person in the Premier League has been Steve Walsh," Ferguson said.

The 74-year-old also tipped West Ham to finish in the top four along with Leicester, Arsenal and Tottenham.

Slaven Bilic's Hammers are currently fifth in the table, two points behind fourth-placed Manchester City and two points ahead of sixth-placed Manchester United.

When could Leicester win the league? David Dubas-Fisher analysis

Leicester City will become Premier League champions on gameweek 36 when they're away at Old Trafford... according to our ultra-scientific model.

We have projected how many points each team will have at the end of every remaining gameweek based on their record this season to see when the Foxes might be out of everybody's reach.

Leicester have 60 points from 29 games so far this season, which works out at an average of just under 2.1 a game.

That means that they would have 62.1 points at the end of gameweek 30 with 24 points left to play for, 64.1 at the end of gameweek 31 with 21 left to play for, 66.2 at the end of gameweek 32 with 18 left to play for and so on.

Tottenham have both averaged 1.9 points per game this season, while Arsenal and Manchester City have averaged just under 1.8 a game.

If, and admittedly it's a big if, those teams maintain their points per game ratios until the end of the season then the top four will look like this:
1st: Leicester, 78.6 points
2nd: Tottenham, 72.1 points
3rd: Arsenal, 68.1 points
4th: Manchester City, 67.9 points

The point of no return will come in gameweek 36.

Tottenham's total projected points at that stage of the season (68.3 points) plus all of the remaining points that they could win (six) wouldn't be enough to match Leicester's projected 74.5 points - just.