Leicester City’s iconic striker Jamie Vardy turned 35 earlier this month, with the Sheffield-born front man still proving a fearsome prospect for Premier League defences despite entering the twilight of his career. At 35, most strikers have lost their electric pace, opting to drop back and play a deeper role as a number ten. However, Vardy remains one of the quickest off the mark in the English top flight — a testament to his physical condition.
This is largely because Vardy’s professional football career has lasted less than a decade. He thrived during the 2011/12 National League campaign at Fleetwood Town, notching 31 league goals in 36 appearances for the Cod Army. Within 12 months of joining the Highbury Stadium outfit, he was snapped up by Leicester City in May 2012. The Foxes – then managed by Nigel Pearson – were prepared to pay a non-league record transfer fee of £1m, rising to £1.7m based on additional clauses.
Struggling with the tag of non-league’s most expensive ever player
With such a hefty price tag, it’s no surprise that Vardy took time to adjust to playing in England’s second tier. He scored just four goals in 26 appearances in his debut season at the King Power Stadium. The following year, everything clicked for Vardy and Leicester, with the former bagging 16 goals in 37 games, helping City to the Championship title. Vardy was named Players’ Player of the Season at the 2013/14 end-of-season awards, underlining his importance to his teammates and fans alike.
After spending just two seasons in the Championship, Leicester and Vardy have been in the Premier League ever since. His debut season on the world’s biggest stage saw him notch five goals in 36 appearances, as the Foxes comfortably avoided the drop. After finishing 14th in their first year back in the Premier League, no-one could have predicted what the 2015/16 season had in store.
Vardy, Leicester and the miracle of 2015/16
Vardy and Leicester started that campaign in electric form. Vardy broke Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of scoring in ten successive Premier League games by scoring in 11 straight matches. He would also go on to win back-to-back Premier League Player of the Month awards in October and November. Vardy and Leicester, under the management of Claudio Ranieri, would eventually go on to win an unprecedented Premier League title. It goes down as one of the finest achievements by an unfancied side in the history of world football. The Foxes were rated 5,000/1 rank outsiders at the start of the season, but Vardy’s pace, power and cold-blooded finishing was a major factor in Leicester’s first top-flight title.
Not content with making history in 2015/16, Vardy has continued to find the net with impressive regularity ever since. He’s averaged at least 15 goals a season for the last four years, with 23 goals in 35 appearances in 2019/20 almost bettering his 2015/16 form. Vardy’s now got 28 England senior caps to his name too, along with seven international goals. However, he retired from international duty in August 2018 to focus on prolonging his club football career.
Despite the recent stuttering Premier League campaigns, goals have not been hard to come by for Vardy in 2020/21 and 2021/22. This year, he’s scored nine in 15 appearances, although injury could prevent him from reaching that 15-goal-a-season mark this time around. Vardy sustained a hamstring injury during the busy Christmas period. Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers confirmed that Vardy will be out of action for several weeks, with the Foxes’ physio department “looking into March” for a realistic return. As the 35-year-old gets older, injuries will certainly start to bite that much harder. Hamstring problems are the last thing he needs given that he relies on his acceleration over the first few yards. He’s rarely involved in the build-up of Leicester attacks, but his explosive speed helps him get on the end of the final pass more often than not.
Even if this is the beginning of the end of Vardy’s career, there’s no doubt that he has made the most of his time in the professional game. He’s come a long way from making his FA Cup debut in the preliminary qualifying rounds for eighth tier Stocksbridge Park Steels back in 2007.
