Leicester without Vardy is just an average side!
Once again, we fell to another defeat to Leicester, but what is becoming clearer is that we don’t lose to Leicester as a team, we lose to one person, and this time round it was no different. We didn’t lose to Leicester we lost to Jamie Vardy.
So, it is worth asking, if Vardy didn’t come on or if he was ruled out of this game, would we have lost the game? And the answer to that for me is no!
Because up until the point of when Vardy came on, the game was pretty much in Arsenal’s control and it was ours to lose. Leicester hardly created chances and Leno hardly had a save to make, becoming more of a spectator in the game rather than actually having to be called into action.
Maybe it could be said that knowing Vardy was on the bench, the boys thought that the game would be easy, and that Vardy was Leicester’s only threat. But surely it would always be in the back of our minds that Vardy ALWAYS scores against us. Of course if you have the cocky mentality of it will be an easy win if Vardy is not on the pitch, then there is always the chance that it will backfire, as it did for us.
Even if Vardy was not fully fit you would never have guessed. Vardy could be using one leg and he would still manage to score against us, that is just how things seem to fall when he plays against us! In fact, after scoring 10 goals in 11 games against us, we should have been expecting it.
But we had more than enough on the pitch on the day to get the three points out of the game regardless of whether Vardy was on the pitch or not, but as always the lack of finishing, the lack of creative flair at times and the introduction of Vardy into the game ended up being a real kick in the teeth for our boys who despite their possession and intensity mainly in the first half, failed to come away with yet another win.
And so we lost to another solo strike, yet again by Jamie Vardy, but I guess that is what we get when we fail to stop Leicester’s biggest threat!
Maybe that is why Arsene Wenger tried his hardest to buy him for Arsenal?
Shenel Osman