Leicester player reviews – Get Carter’s 20/21: The full nine Vards?

To the untrained eye though that would be easy to look past as he raced into the season with eight goals in his first eight games. His sharpness and eye for comedy was still there in spades as he cupped his ear to an empty Hawthornes on the opening day of the season after another goal. Then came a hat trick at a remarkable 5-2 thrashing of eventual champions Manchester City where Vardy scored an incredible through the leg finish. Winners at Arsenal and Sheffield United followed, as well as a dramatic last minute equaliser in Braga . Up to Christmas he’d scored thirteen goals in all competitions, contributing four assists.

All looked rosy in the garden of Jamie, but in truth the cracks were already starting to appear. Penalties are normally a strikers bread and butter and Vardy is no different, but his reliance on them this season has been telling. Of those thirteen goals he scored seven were penalties.

What happened after Christmas was an alarming drop off. Of the 25 games he played from New years day he scored just two goals from open play with one of them being a goal against Liverpool which most of us would expect our elderly relatives to poke in. This may sound harsh and in many ways it is as there are reasons for this drop off. In January the club felt it necessary for Vardy to have groin surgery which meant him being out of the side for five games where an emerging Kelechi Iheanacho started to build his confidence.