Jamie Vardy has scored a double for the ninth time in the last 11 seasons for Leicester City and the Foxes legend has no plans to call it a career despite his age and contract status.The 37-year-old scored in City’s win over Stoke City on Saturday to take his tally to ten goals for the season in all competitions.
Vardy’s next appearance, scheduled for this weekend away at Watford, will be his 450th in a Leicester jersey since arriving from Fleetwood for £1m in 2012. In that time, the striker has scored 180 goals and lifted three silverware medals, as well as featuring in the Champions League and representing England in major tournaments.
Vardy, who missed the whole of December and the festive period due to a knee injury that kept him sidelined during that period, has scored five goals in his last five appearances since that absence and although his role in the team has changed considerably since his move to the Championship and the ideas of Enzo Maresco, he is still hungry to move on and wants to ensure he is ready for the start of the season. Whatever happens this summer, Vardy wants to continue.
“Of course, like everybody, you want to play as much as you can, but if you’re on the bench and you get on the pitch, you’ve got to make sure you make an impact,” Vardy told LCFC. “Thirty-seven is just a number. You’re only as young as you feel. I look after myself, I keep fit, so I’m going to keep going as long as I can. Football is a tough game, it has to be, and you just have to make sure you recover properly and get ready for the next game.
“Looking at the world and the advancement of technology, we can now do different things to recover. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to put this in my house, so any extra recovery I can do at home when we’re not at the training ground gives me a little bit of an advantage. As long as I keep doing it, I will keep feeling fresh.
“As with everything, you can never be too old to learn something new. That’s the way [Maresca] wants us to play, and when you’re on the training ground it’s about accepting that, practicing and making sure you’re able to do that, giving yourself a chance to come into his team. Playing the football that we play is very enjoyable for me personally. It’s given a different dimension to my game, so it’s been great.”