Is Jamie Vardy still Leicester City’s number one striker?
With the major issues across the rest of the team/management/club, Vardy's slow start to the season has maybe gone under the radar a little.
We've been here a few times before in the past, particularly when Claude Puel was in his last few games as it really didn't look good for Vardy and many wondered if it was the beginning of the end. Happily, under Brendan, this was blown out of the water and he's scored at a higher rate for three years than he had before.
Until now.
One has to be honest and say he's looked a shadow of his former self so far this season, culminating in 20 minutes of wandering around the centre circle chewing gum at Brighton.
For the first time since the first Premier League season, I'd say no, he's not first choice now. However, you do wonder what impact the court case has had on him as it must have been a very tiring and unhappy summer for Jamie and his family? That really does need to be taken into consideration.
Let's hope this unexpected break allows him some time to reset and the goals begin to flow again.
Iain Wright
Yes, he will always be the main man, but we must be much smarter with how we use him now.
I don't think he should play as a lone striker anymore. Vardy, Daka and Keldog all suit playing in a two, so we need to utilise that and rotate to get the best out of them all. Kel's stats don't lie - he's key and will keep Vards going.
Vardy had a dry patch last season where people asked this and he showed he's still got it. He'll come good again, but when the time comes for him to retire, football will be finished.
Becky Taylor
Deciding that he isn't three weeks after giving him a new contract would be yet another example of the banter season in progress.
But I think he probably is. He's always been streaky, so I'm less worried about his lack of goals than the fact we never create any chances for him. As he's got older, he's become less of a player who makes things happen on his own and more a penalty box striker.
Which is fine, assuming you get the ball into the penalty box to begin with. Otherwise we may as well play a lamppost up top. Or re-sign Carl Cort.
He's still got his bastard vibes and movement. All our strikers are good, so it's not really about swapping them around. It worked against Brighton because we forgot ourselves for a minute and put together a competent attacking move straight from kick off. How to do that more often than once per season is a more pressing question than who should start up front.
James Knight
You can certainly bend the stats to suit your argument.
0 in 6.
5 in 10.
5 in 16.
Which goes to show, as James has said above, Vardy is a streaky striker. He went six games without a goal towards the end of last season before a little run in the final four games brought memories of his best years.
It feels like he’s the wrong kind of striker for an underperforming team though. He never has many touches of a ball and when the entire unit isn’t functioning properly, it negates his effect almost entirely. The exception to that is obviously the Chelsea game when he had the chances but didn’t take them.
I won’t be alone in being interested to see what a Daka/Iheanacho pairing could do after looking dangerous in spells against Brighton. The only problem with that being it doesn’t fit the preferred Rodgers 4-2-3-1 very well.
At the moment, our strikers are feeding off scraps and there’s an argument that Daka is currently the man you want on the end of those scraps.
Hopefully Vardy sees this is even being posed as a question - that should be enough to secure a hat-trick at Tottenham. Then we just need to make sure we don’t concede three times… What?
David Bevan
