Jamie Vardy’s contract with Leicester City expires at the end of the season. The club legend hopes to lead the team back to the Premier League in a grand finale, but a replacement is already available.
Vardy joined Leicester from Fleetwood Town in the summer of 2012, becoming the first million-pound non-league footballer in English history. Despite a slow start in the Midlands, his goals propelled Leicester to victory in 2013/14, and he achieved biblical stardom at the King Power Stadium by winning the Premier League in 2015/16.
He’s still scoring goals in the Championship and has guided Leicester to the league’s top spot by already reaching double figures. However, with the future to consider, there may be a ready-made alternative for Vardy in Kasper Dolberg.
Why Kasper Dolberg is the best Jamie Vardy replacement.
Despite the fact that Kelechi Iheanacho, Patson Daka, and Tom Cannon are now competing with Vardy at Leicester, the Foxes will most certainly require four strikers at the King Power Stadium next season if they are promoted to the top flight. Vardy’s age and relative club wage, having become a high-earner in the east Midlands during his successful period with the Foxes, suggest that he could move in the summer, with Dolberg tipped as his ideal replacement.
Vardy scores in the top 95th percentile of attackers for non-penalty goals (0.60), the top 97th percentile for pass completion rate in his position (79.1 percent), and the 77th percentile for clearances, yet he falls short in aerial duels won and blocks.
Dolberg is all but identical. Ranking in the top 84th percentile for non-penalty goals in the Belgian Pro League with a 0.50, the top 83rd percentile of pass completion rates with 74.5 percent, and also displaying much more proficiency in terms of clearances than other metrics when defending from the front, he’s all but a like-for-like swap for Vardy.
There’s also the matter of comparing various levels of competition, so Dolberg would normally score better in a league where he wasn’t up against Igor Thiago – who is likely to join Brentford for a club record amount in the summer – and others.
Jamie Vardy transfer news newest
Vardy will undoubtedly be a Leicester icon forever, no matter where he ends up. That could be this summer, when he leaves the King Power Stadium as Leicester’s greatest ever player, having scored nearly 200 goals for the club, 136 of which came in the Premier League, four in Europe, and, of course, that magical first top-flight trophy that the club had craved for so long.
Vardy, 37, is expected to quit the club because there are other, younger options available. However, he has no intention of terminating his contract and starting over, according to Leicester Live.
Vardy stated, “Thirty-seven is just a number.” You are as youthful as you feel. I take care of myself and stay in shape so that I can keep going as long as feasible. Football is a hard game, and it has to be that way. All you have to do is heal properly and prepare for the next game.
“If you look at the world and how technology has advanced, there are several things you can do to recuperate now. I’ve been fortunate enough to have it installed in my home, so any extra healing time I can have at home when we’re not at the training ground benefits me slightly. So long as I keep doing it, I’ll keep feeling good.”
