THEY don't call it the Theatre of Dreams for nothing. Old Trafford has hosted many an extravagant title party over the years but rarely has the famous old Salford stadium seen the kind of surreal scenes it will witness on Sunday. Leicester City, 5000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, arrive in town knowing the outlandish notion of them bamboozling the billionaires of the Barclays Premier League to scoop the first top flight title in their history is one win away from becoming cold, hard reality.

Whether or not they get over the line against Louis van Gaal's side - Tottenham must win all three of their remaining matches, starting on Monday night against Chelsea, to deprive them - Ally Mauchlen is determined to make a weekend of it. A strange quirk of fate means the combative former Kilmarnock and Motherwell midfielder - who played for seven years at Leicester between 1985 and 1992, and now fronts up the matchday hospitality at the King Power Stadium - will be part of what Roy Keane once memorably called the prawn sandwich brigade. He plans to wash it down with the ice cold bottle of champagne he has chilling in his room at Gary Neville's Hotel Football across the road.

"Me and the Mrs buy each other Christmas presents and try to outdo each other but she has absolutely blown me out of the water this year," Mauchlen told Herald Sport. "She has excelled herself because I have got VIP Europa Lounge hospitality at Man U on Sunday and I'm staying at Gary Neville's Hotel Football for two nights. The timing is unbelievable, considering she booked the tickets in November. To find out that it all hinges on this is unbelievable. It has to be fate! If it all comes out like that, I'll happily say that she won us the league."

That, of course, isn't the real answer to that mystery. Assuming Leicester make good of their seven-point lead in these three remaining matches - as they surely will - their success must be put down to a potent mixture of some good football players and some excellent football players, a remarkable team ethic, the military organisation of manager Claudio Ranieri, some excellent luck with injuries and some rather lacklustre competition.

"My days pale into insignificance compared to what this group of players and this management team have achieved," said Mauchlen. "The Martin O'Neill era was up there and everybody was using that as a benchmark but when you walk around the club and speak to guys like Matt Elliott and Gerry Taggart they are in awe of this squad too. Every player has really pulled their weight while some have really punched above their weight."

Leicester aren't a team with no stars, they are a team with rising ones. PFA Player of the Year Riyad Mahrez, an Algerian who cost all of £400,000 when snapped up from French second tier side Le Havre in 2014 - it was revealed yesterday that he also endured an unhappy two-month trial at St Mirren - is sure to be the subject of some hefty bids from the great and good of European football this summer. So too will Jamie Vardy, a man who was playing lower league football until 2011 but just can't stop scoring goals. The non-stop Ngolo Kante is already being linked with a lucrative move to Juventus, Kasper Schmeichel has come a long way from Falkirk, while those who cried when Esteban Cambiasso left the club obviously hadn't figured on the development of Danny Drinkwater. There are now no fewer than 16 international players in this squad, and it is one of the lesser lights who epitomises the club's progress to Mauchlen. "While the art of defending isn't recognised quite so much in today's game," he said, "the guy Christian Fuchs at left back has been utterly sublime for me."

Leicester is a city still coming to terms with the fact this is really going to happen. "It just beggars belief," said Mauchlen. "The whole city is just numb. I am going to stick my head on the block and say I don't think they will need to win another game and that is a big, big call for me. It would be nice to win one more just to rubber stamp it but Chelsea won't want their London rivals to go on and win it, Southampton are a very good side, and Newcastle need points at the end of the season.

"I have been down here since 1985 now and it is my club," he added. "To see these guys and get to know some of them personally I have nothing but praise for them and most of them are decent individuals as well. Football being football, players will already be getting tapped up for next season, but we should just enjoy the moment."

So that is what Mauchlen plans to do. Should the day pan out as he hopes, there is just one problem about his magical Manchester weekend. He is going to have to come up with something pretty special for Christmas next year. "I am throwing the towel in!" he joked. "I can't compete with that."