Happy to hear the abuse now – just like in the old days.
“…Iheanacho’s ball for Jamie Vardy, past Heaton, is he gonna force it in? Vardy, still going! Kept his composure well! He’s a top quality striker! He didn’t panic there! Villa lost the ball and Jamie Vardy – had to be him – puts the Foxes in front!” Gee. Didn’t we all hear that before?
He’s a marvel to watch. He scores headers. He scores volleys. He scores precise, placed finishes. Against Bournemouth, he’s found the net with a long-range lob, nicely aimed in spite of the ball’s bounce. When Newcastle tried to stop him, he opened his account by powering through Martin Dúbravka’s near post from a difficult angle. Southampton’s Maya Yoshida got nutmegged by him on a turn; Villa’s Ezri Konsa lost his footing twice trying to chase him. Jamie Vardy is on a rampage. And he will not stop.
There is a superstition for everything. Two months ago, Coleen Rooney went on a Twitter rant, accusing Jamie’s wife Rebekah of leaking her personal information to the press. That celebrity hogwash has quickly found it’s way to the Premier League stands, from which Vardy has allegedly started to receive the amount of abuse unusual even to him. Which eventually has led him to lash out the way he always does: getting to incredible 16 goals with two weeks until Christmas and toppling all pre-season Golden Boot odds.
However – more reasonable explanations are available. Having finished 9th last year, courtesy of a dire New Year crisis of form, Leicester City have improved drastically. After suffering a last-minute heartbreak at Anfield, Brendan Rodgers’ lads have won nine competitive games in a row, taking the lead among the teams in chase of The Reds as well as comfortably outplaying Burton Albion in the League Cup. As a result, their current point tally after sixteen matches is three points better than at the same stage of the unforgettable 2015/16 title run!
With that progress, comes the much improved standard of performance. Gone are the days when Foxes would put a deadlock on their defensive third with two banks of four and launch long passes to Vardy. Now that the poacher has James Maddison and Youri Tielemans picking out the through balls, Ayoze Pérez cutting inside from the wing and Ricardo Pereira supplying the crosses, he’s able to do far more than his trademark sprints off the shoulder of the last defender. Not to say that he doesn’t do that anymore – at Villa Park, that’s how he scored two.
If you’re seeing this, it’s too late.
The forward’s career is quite telling when it comes to the flaws of youth recruitment in the UK. The year Leeds’ Aaron Lennon has become the youngest Premier League debutante, Vardy has been released by then-Division One Sheffield Wednesday. The year Shane Long was promoted with Reading and started to score top-flight goals for The Royals, his eleven days older colleague was still trying his luck in the non-league football at Stocksbridge Park Steels. And by the time JV9 joined Leicester, another one of his peers, Mark Noble, already had 129 Premier League games under his belt…
There isn’t much glamour about playing in the lower leagues. The games often revolve around getting stuck-in, pouncing on the crosses or making the most of the set-pieces. Vardy spent three years in that setting, splitting his time between football and a factory job, still unsure whether he’ll ever make it as a full professional as he’s already turned 23 and even Division Two dwellers from Crewe Alexandra have denied him a contract after a trial. By moving to FC Halifax instead, he’s only made a sideways move in the seventh league.
That’s where the pacey forward’s rise has coincided with the purple patch of his new club. Starting the 2010-11 season as a newly promoted side, The Shaymen went on to lift the Northern Premier League title, often scoring five or six goals in a match and breaking the league’s attendance record in the process. With the remarkable nineteen point margin at the end of the season, Neil Aspin’s side stormed through the opposition and it’s main man ended up contributing 24 out of 108 his team’s goals.
To this day, JV9 supports the idea of a Non-League Day. For obvious reasons.
The next campaign turned out even better. Having moved further upwards, to the fifth-tier Fleetwood Town, Vardy has led The Trawlermen to their maiden Football League promotion. This time, his 31 goals was no match for any other forward – and neither were 103 points and a crazy, 29-game unbeaten streak achieved by his club. Few weeks after another glorious campaign, the forward, who’s been rejected by Preston North End due to the £100,000 transfer valuation, strengthened Leicester City for a record-breaking non-league fee of £1,000,000.
His Premier League landmark moment came in September 2014. Against Manchester United, Foxes were down 0-2 after a quarter; then, 1-3 down after an hour. Vardy, with one assist already in the bag, instigated the comeback by winning a penalty and then helping Esteban Cambiasso to equalize. When Red Devils went forward to search for a match winner, JV9 was at his element again – and he took advantage of Ritchie De Laet’s interception to run through. His cheeky, near-post finish past De Gea was just a cherry on top.
Now, 192 games and 96 goals later, more records are just around the corner. Having already surpassed Ruud van Nistelrooy on the PL’s all-time goalscorer list, Vardy is set to become England’s 29th centurion – and, if fitness allows, to eventually eclipse 110 goals scored for five different clubs by Leicester’s legend from two decades ago, Emile Heskey. If he can continue his form until 34, the forward will also surely surpass the interwar period sniper Ernie Hine as Foxes third-best goalscorer in the club’s history. All that after netting his maiden PL strike at the ripe age of 27 years, 8 months and 10 days!
“I’ve loved the hunger that he has in every game. And when he reaches 100, his hunger will continue. That hunger got him to where he is, and will continue to take him in his career” said the man heavily responsible for Jamie’s rampage. Before Brendan Rodgers, there were the times of Claude Puel, who needed 51 league matches to extract 23 goals out of the forward – the forward whom he’s also occasionally put on the bench in favor of Islam Slimani. Today, eleven months after Puel, Slimani plays on loan at AS Monaco and Vardy has 26 goals in 26 league matches under his current boss.
This weekend, there will be more to follow. King Power Stadium is hosting the 19th team in the league with 34 goals conceded in 16 games. Vardy, already proven against the £30 million plus likes of Nathan Aké, David Luiz or Michael Keane, will be running at young Ben Godfrey and the former Dortmund B-teamer, Christoph Zimmermann. With Kelechi Iheanacho nearby and immediately in good form, things are almost certain to get gory. The bookies from William Hill have Vardinho at +180 to score first – higher even than the odds for Tammy Abraham, who’s facing the backup centre-halves of slumping Bournemouth…
Shot on Goal 