Comparing Jamie Vardy’s 2015/16 campaign with his performances for Leicester this season

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Jamie Vardy’s season couldn’t be more different from last. In February 2016, the former Fleetwood frontman was topping the goalscoring charts, had recently beaten a historic Premier League record and was a near certainty to be in the Euro squad for the upcoming summer tournament. Fast forward 12 months, and he is struggling to consistently hit the back of the net and England’s champions are flirting dangerously with the prospect of relegation. But what do the statistics really say about Vardy’s performance?

On the face of it, the 30-year-old appears to be a man struggling for confidence and assistance from his side. Vardy has scored just five times in this Premier League campaign – with three of those coming in a seldom-spectacular showing against title-chasers Manchester City. By the end of 2015/16, the striker had bagged 24 times, meaning that even if he scored in every game until the end of this season, the totals will still be incomparable. Assists aren’t part of Vardy’s repertoire, so a total of two assists so far compared to six last campaign shouldn’t really be judged.

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Conversely, he appears to be less wasteful with the opportunities he is given – probably due to receiving so little support. He has made an average of 1.6 bad touches this season – as opposed to 1.8 last, whilst he has also been dispossessed a less amount of times (0.8 times per match last term compared to 0.5 in 2016/2017). Vardy has also won more and lost fewer ariel duels throughout the current domestic campaign – perhaps it was an area he needed to work on should Leicester resort to long ball tactics.

The real difference which proves Jamie Vardy isn’t the same player he was a year ago is his attacking intent. On average, he has taken less than half as many shots per match (3.2 compared to 1.4), with only one shot being taking inside the box this season compared to 2.5 last campaign.

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The England frontman has shown glimpses of his former self at various points throughout the season, but many will feel that Vardy, who is now in his thirties, has surpassed his peak as a footballer and will deteriorate if he chooses to stay part of Leicester City’s sinking ship. It wasn’t too long ago that a big money Arsenal transfer was on the horizon, but alas, Vardy is scrapping it out in a relegation battle instead.

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