It has not always been the way in the past few months but it was hard to wipe the smile off the face of Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha, the Leicester chairman, as Abdul Fatawu completed his hat-trick, capping the scoring in a rout of Southampton on a night that left an instant return to the Premier League seemingly all but a formality.
After the heavy financial losses, the legal action against the English Football League after being placed under a transfer embargo, the angst among supporters and the surrender of what looked an unassailable lead at the summit – they were 17 points clear of now second-placed Leeds at the beginning of the year – the prize of promotion is finally in plain sight.
