Why Gareth Southgate Needs To Speak To Jamie Vardy
They say that only a fool would predict the outcome of a sporting competition when it’s not even reached its halfway stage. At the risk of making ourselves sound like fools, it looks like Liverpool have already wrapped up the English Premier League championship this season. They have a lead of fourteen points over last year’s faltering winners Manchester City, and they’re yet to suffer their first defeat of the season. With the exception of a surprising draw with Manchester United, the Anfield side has a perfect record this term.
Nobody can or should be expected to keep pace with a team that's won fifteen out of sixteen games, and Manchester City certainly won't be doing so. Their derby day defeat by United puts them out of any realistic contention. Liverpool has dropped only two points all season. The thought of them dropping a further fourteen seems out of the question, and even if they did, there's no indication that City is currently capable of putting together enough consecutive wins to capitalize on a sudden loss of form.
With all the talk of Manchester City dropping away, people are starting to pay more attention to 2016's surprise package Leicester City. Leicester's run to the title that year was straight from a fairytale, but even at the time, it was thought to be a one-off miracle. Nobody seriously expected Leicester to challenge for major honors again, and for the next three seasons, they didn't. This season, everything has changed, and that's down to two factors; Brendan Rodgers and Jamie Vardy.
Rodgers has always been a great manager. He was unlucky not to deliver the title to Liverpool during his own time at the helm there, and even unluckier to have been sacked. He has an uncanny knack of being able to turn a football team from an online slots machine to a surefire bet. Whatever you put into a website like Roseslots.com - whether it’s a few dollars or a few hundred - it will only pay out some of the time. On top of the random payouts, online slots are unpredictable. Everything you need to win with them is there, but the required elements only line up occasionally. Rodgers is able to take those elements and make them line up consistently. He did it at Celtic, and now he’s doing it at Leicester.
Perhaps the most important thing he’s done at Leicester is re-discovered Jamie Vardy’s innate goalscoring talent. Vardy was unbelievable in the season that Leicester won the league, breaking records on his way to winning the Golden Boot that season. In subsequent seasons and under subsequent managers, he was never quite the same. At the age of 32, many people assumed his best days were behind him, and he was incapable of finding the same kind of form again. Those people were wrong. Vardy is back, and he’s better than ever.
At the time of writing, Vardy has scored in eight consecutive Premier League games. He’s on his own at the top of the goalscoring charts, and if he carries on as he is, nobody is likely to catch him. There are strikers in the division who cost $40m or more who will struggle to net sixteen goals this term. Vardy has hit that figure already, and will likely go much higher.
Under normal circumstances, this would all be music to the ears of England manager Gareth Southgate. England has the Euro 2020 tournament coming up, and are thought to have their best chance of winning it for a generation or more. Having one of Europe's most consistent and reliable top-class scorers to call upon would boost their chances of picking up the trophy immeasurably, but when it comes to England and Vardy, there's a problem. Vardy theoretically retired from international football after the 2018 World Cup and has previously said he'd only consider reversing that decision if his country needed him because of an injury crisis.
It shouldn't take an injury crisis for Vardy to be in the England team, and the fact that he felt the need to stress that requirement might say a lot about how he feels about the way England has used him. There are many positives that have come from Southgate's time in charge of the national side, but the treatment of Vardy isn't one of them. In truth, his issues with England go back further than that. Even when he was tearing up pitches in 2015 and 2016, he was never England's main man. Harry Kane was always ahead of him. At various times, Wayne Rooney, Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling, and even Daniel Sturridge have beaten him to selection. Vardy never got the chance to show his best form at international level and ultimately took the decision to walk away instead of sitting on the bench.
Whatever he says publicly about wanting to give youth a chance, there should be little doubt that Southgate would love to have Vardy available to him. He'd be foolish not to. His problem in persuading Vardy back into the fold might come with his reluctance to promise the striker that he'll be a first-choice pick. Kane is England's captain, and won't be making way for anybody. If England chooses to play with two strikers - which is far from a given - then Tammy Abraham and Marcus Rashford are both contenders for the role, with Sterling likely to slot in behind them. Room would have to be made for Vardy, who is currently outscoring all of them. He deserves it, but would he be given it?
The job of the England manager is to field a side that has the best possible chance of winning any given football match on any given day. For Southgate and England, right now that means picking Jamie Vardy and risking making another striker unhappy by putting him in the starting lineup, and in his preferred position. Winning the Euros is a difficult task, and England aren't necessarily the favorites to do so. One thing is for sure, though - they'll have a better chance with Vardy on the pitch. It's now up to Southgate to make the phone call and tell the Leicester ace what he needs to hear.
