Trawl through the Premier League’s leading scorers – or, to be more specific, a list of 25 players who have registered three goals or more this season – and there are only five Englishmen. Saido Berahino, Raheem Sterling and Nathan Redmond have scored four times, Callum Wilson, whose campaign has been cruelly wrecked by injury, has five to his name, and then there is the man who is not only flying the flag for his country but also leaving Sergio Agüero, Alexis Sánchez and the rest of the Premier League in his wake. Jamie Vardy, take a bow.
Vardy has plundered nine in as many appearances, three more than anyone else, and if the Leicester City striker gets another goal against Crystal Palace on Saturday, he will join a select band by becoming only the sixth player in the last 20 years – Ruud van Nistelrooy, Alan Shearer, Thierry Henry, Emmanuel Adebayor and Daniel Sturridge are the others – to score in seven successive Premier League fixtures.
Whether Vardy is getting the praise and credit he deserves for blazing such a trail at the start of this campaign is another matter. Roy Hodgson thinks extremely highly of Vardy, with the England manager surprising many by calling him up at the end of last season and giving him four caps between now and then, but wider recognition seems harder to come by, so much so that Vardy could be forgiven for thinking how different it would be if one of the Premier League’s A-listers had scored at a similar rate at the start of this term.
It will certainly be interesting to see who picks up October’s Premier League player of the month award. September’s went to Anthony Martial, the French teenager who made a big impression for Manchester United after scoring on his debut against Liverpool before adding another two against Southampton. Interestingly, however, United’s supporters did not deem Martial worthy of winning the award at club level and instead voted for Juan Mata. Vardy, for the record, scored four in three fixtures across the same period, including two against Arsenal.
It is the nature of the media beast that the spotlight shines brightest on the biggest clubs and the sexiest names, whether that be Chelsea trying to emerge from a crisis, Sterling scoring the first hat-trick of his senior career or Jürgen Klopp enjoying a pint of Stella Artois, and it is perhaps also true that in an age when domestic football is a global product, a wiry former factory worker from Sheffield may not be everyone’s cup of tea on the other side of the world.
Those close to Vardy talk about “club snobbery” and wonder whether it counts against the striker that, as well as playing for an unfashionable Premier League team – albeit one that is thriving and where he is extremely happy – the 28-year-old goes under the radar because he is a product of the non-league football pyramid, rather than a teenage prodigy that spent 10,000 hours in an elite academy.
Others may not be falling over themselves to get excited about Vardy’s goalscoring exploits because of off-the-field matters, notably the incident in a casino when he made a racist remark to another gambler, whom he called a “Jap” during an argument. Vardy deeply regrets the whole episode and has publicly apologised for his behaviour, which breached the Football Association’s code of conduct for England players, and he has also met and said sorry to the person he abused.
Leicester and England stood by him and nobody can dispute the fact that Vardy has stayed true to his promise to let his feet do the talking from now on. Beyond the deluge of goals, which have arrived at an average of one every 89 minutes this season, Vardy has had more shots on target (30) than any other Premier League striker, created more chances (15) and made more tackles (13). Indeed Sánchez is the only player in the top flight to have touched the ball on more occasions (one more, to be exact) in the opposition box than Vardy.
An aggressive runner who never gives defenders any peace, Vardy is much more than a predator who comes to life in the penalty area, and Leicester have reaped the rewards of playing to his strengths. He is a constant menace and thrives in a team that presses high up the pitch, acting as Leicester’s first defender when they are without the ball and, by playing on the last man’s shoulder, the focal point of their attack once in possession.
His transformation from this season to last, when he came good towards the end but scored only once in his first 24 Premier League appearances, has been startling and there are several factors behind the turnaround. Chief among them is the fact that Vardy has flourished since being used as an out-and-out striker, rather than deployed out wide, which is where he often found himself in the first half of last season under and also the role that Hodgson had in mind when he started him wide on the left in the Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania last week.
Vardy had his moments on the flank last season, most memorably in what he describes as the game of his life, when he ran Manchester United ragged in that extraordinary 5-3 victory at the King Power Stadium 13 months ago, but he is not a winger and never will be. Playing him through the middle leaves the opposition much more exposed to his pace and allows Vardy to have a far greater influence on the game (it is, of course, one thing to command that role for Leicester and quite another with England).
As well as the positional shift, Leicester’s staff point to the way Vardy has worked on refining his finishing skills by recognising the importance of placement over power at times – his brilliant opening goal against Arsenal this season was a case in point – and in doing so acknowledge the part that Kevin Phillips, the club’s former first-team coach who has since moved onto Derby County, played in that process.
Last but by no means least is confidence, which Vardy admitted is “oozing” after his second-half brace at Southampton on Saturday salvaged a point. Vardy, clearly, is not going to keep scoring at the same rate – at least that is what Claudio Ranieri, Leicester’s manager, said before the Southampton game – and it is tempting to think that the real test for him will come when the goals dry up for a few matches and we see how a player who is enjoying only his second season of Premier League football responds.
Yet those who have closely followed Vardy on a remarkable journey that started with Stocksbridge Park Steels in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League will point – with some justification – to his position at the top of the Premier League goalscoring charts and his place in the England squad, and argue that he has long since answered all the questions that have been asked of him.
Premier League’s top scorers
Jamie Vardy, Leicester City 9
Sergio Agüero, Manchester City 6
Alexis Sánchez, Arsenal 6
Georginio Wijnaldum, Newcastle United 6
Odion Ighalo, Watford 5
Romelu Lukaku, Everton 5
Riyad Mahrez, Leicester City 5
Dimitri Payet, West Ham United 5
Graziano Pellè, Southampton 5
Callum Wilson, Bournemouth 5