Vardy proves us all wrong again - four takeaways from Leicester vs Spurs
Leicester City manager Steve Cooper and Jamie Vardy after their side's Premier League draw with Spurs. Picture: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire.
He’s barely trained all summer, is still carrying an injury and is 37 years old. But the mercurial Jamie Vardy is still a one-man party for Leicester City.
That’s the good news for Foxes fans, who saw their hero head home expertly to drag his side back from 1-0 down to earn a 1-1 draw.
But with Patson Daka out for months with an ankle injury and nobody else stepping up, there’s still a desperate need to find a striker in the transfer market.
Vardy, against all odds, scored 20 goals last season to help get Leicester back up having scored only six in their relegation season the year before – when everyone thought his career may be over.
He proved once again that we all got it wrong, after scoring a second-half equaliser and almost adding a second minutes later (even though Spurs had given his team a pummelling in the first 45 minutes).
The only problem now for buzzing Leicester is can they bring in some help before the window closes. Vardy can’t do it all alone (even though he’ll give it a good go).
A big transfer fee can be a burden for some players, so the sooner that Tottenham’s new striker Dominic Solanke gets off the mark, the better.
The former Bournemouth, Liverpool and Chelsea forward scored 21 goals for the Cherries last season and earned himself a big money move to north London in the process. Ever since then there’s been a debate about whether he’s worth the fee or not – and the question hasn’t been answered yet.
Solanke looked sharp enough at Leicester, but his finishing was far from ruthless, and that proved costly. One diving header went straight to keeper Mads Hermansen, then a towering header went the same way – and after the break he drilled a shot on the turn right at the Leicester man, who completed a hat-trick of smart saves.
Those misses allowed Leicester back in the game and he wasn’t the only culprit. If Spurs want to be top four, they must score when they dominate.
The Foxes won a lot of plaudits for the fluid and exciting football they played under previous manager Enzo Maresca, who moved on to Chelsea. So, appointing a replacement who has a completely different way was a risk.
Steve Cooper is a very good manager who did an outstanding job with Nottingham Forest; but his playing style is nothing like Maresca’s and he knows there is work to do before everything clicks.
It doesn’t help that Leicester sold Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, the man who made their midfield tick, to Chelsea, too – and his absence contributed to a one-sided first half in which the Foxes were pummelled by their visitors.
But what we did see in the end was that Leicester's battling qualities and never-say-die attitude from their Premier League days are still there as they completely turned the game around. Cooper's half-time team talk must have been a belter; and that, together with tactical substitutions, is where he brings something extra.
Spurs midfielder Maddison had an awful end to last season, so bad in fact that he lost his place in the England squad for Euro 2024 and was left watching the tournament on holiday.
But he was back to his smiling, impish, best against his former club Leicester - and looking like the player we all know he’s capable of being.
Lesser characters would have been defeated by the kind of disappointment he went through last year, especially as illness and a drop-off in form from the entire Tottenham team were part of the problem rather than just his own inconsistencies.
But Maddison – on his first return to Leicester since moving to Spurs – looked back to his normal self, including a classy assist for Pedro Porro’s opener.
When he’s on form, Maddison is his team’s key player, orchestrating everything from the centre of midfield, and at 27 this is the perfect time to deliver on that talent.
What he needs, however, is for others around him to show the same character. Isn't that Spurs all over?
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