The importance of rekindling Jamie Vardy’s best form for Leicester

With Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang joining Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy on 19 Premier League goals this season, this article discusses how to rejuvenate the Fox.

Since the restart, Leicester City man Jamie Vardy’s lead as the Premier League top goalscorer has dissipated. With two goals in Arsenal’s 3-0 victory against Norwich, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has joined the Foxes front-man on 19 goals for the season.

There’s also Danny Ings on 18 goals. Southampton’s striker has been in red-hot form post lockdown, scoring an average of one goal per game.

On the contrary, Vardy hasn’t scored since the restart. It’s partly the reason Leicester City have been struggling to win games, without a consistent scorer of goals, Rodgers has struggled to find another avenue capable of supporting Vardy – who has only managed seven shots on target in 2020, even by his standards of outperforming his own xG (expected goals), this is a dry spell.

In fact, taking a look at the three games after the restart; Watford, Brighton & Hove Albion, and Everton, Vardy has a combined xG of 0.25, from three matches. That’s catastrophically low, if you take the games individually, he had a 0.18 xG versus Watford, a 0.07 xG versus Brighton & Hove Albion, and an abysmal 0.00 xG versus Everton last night.

So, what does Rodgers need to change, to ensure that Vardy and the Foxes start scoring as freely as they did during the early stages of the season?