Premier League Hangover: Vardy Breaks Record and Pushes Rooney to Periphery

There was a sense of the inevitable about both. Jamie Vardy got the fun bit out of the way early, as he needed just 24 minutes to become the first player in Premier League history to score in 11 consecutive games. Then in the second half, a further shower of deja vu threatened to flood the King Power Stadium when Wayne Rooney was replaced after another slovenly one-paced display.

England coach Roy Hodgson was in attendance but appeared to refrain from joining in the "just a s--t Jamie Vardy" ditty that greeted his captain’s substitution.

One suspects a man who is known to take his pleasure through the likes of John Updike and Philip Roth is erudite enough not to be spellbound by the prospect of instant gratification, yet Hodgson has his needs like any other.

On what he witnessed in the east Midlands, which was in truth a fair microcosm of the season as a whole, few would accuse him of cowering to populism were he to have mentally put a line through Rooney’s name and replaced it with Vardy’s.

"All mine! All f--king mine," appeared to be Vardy’s industrial response to shooing Ruud van Nistelrooy off a podium he wanted all for himself, when his record-breaking goal on Saturday gave Leicester City a deserved lead against a predictably ponderous, prosaic, plodding, pedestrian Manchester United in the opening sparring.

Having dethroned one United legend, he may well now train his sights on another.

For a player who relies so heavily on his pace, Vardy has been playing catch-up his entire career. At 28, he has less than three-and-a-half seasons as a professional in his locker. To put his trajectory into context, he was being paid £30-a-week to turn out for Stocksbridge Park Steels in 2010.

An ascent to the summit has circumnavigated just as many troughs (both personal and professional) as peaks since almost four years ago to the day he was playing in front of 768 people for Fleetwood Town at Gateshead. Indeed, it has been achieved in such haste it’s rumoured Sir Edmund Hillary was overtaken pushed off the cliff face en route.

If Vardy embodies everything that has been electric about Leicester this season, then Rooney—in many respects—holds a mirror up to United. 

No living mammal brings out the schadenfreude in the English quite like Rooney. He could order a Big Mac and be criticised for the number of touches he took to put his change in his pocket. A vindictiveness has crept into how some report his malaise, but while there's no pleasure in pointing out his ineffectiveness again at the weekend, it would be equally amiss to gloss over the fact that with each passive performance, his best days seem as far away as sepia-tinged home-movie footage brought down from the loft at Christmas.

In Norman Mailer's magnificent The Fight, which documents Muhammad Ali's legendary 1974 world heavyweight championship bout with George Foreman in Zaire, there is an early passage in which the reporter—by this stage almost a friend of Ali—documents a sparring session that worries him. If you substitute "punches" for "tackles" it's not hard to draw parallels with United's own champion, seemingly on the cusp of being usurped. 

"He was getting hit by stupid punches and they seemed to take him by surprise. He was not languid but sluggish," wrote Mailer.

"He looked bored. He showed, as he worked, all the sullen ardour of a husband obliging himself to make love to his wife in the thick of carnal indifference."

Rooney used to be the proverbial bull in the china shop and for all the sanctimonious talk at the time of how he needed to curb an aggressive temperament, it was a good thing. It made him the player he was, it's making Vardy the player he is. 

United's captain currently looks like a self-conscious bull in a china shop, and that's a hard look to pull off. The simplest of things, be it a lay-off or simply trapping the ball properly, are made to look as difficult as picking up a Ming vase with hooves to check a hallmark.

Gary Neville, a long-term advocate of his former team-mate, stopped short of saying Rooney needed replacing in his post-match podcast for Sky Sports, but it's not difficult to surmise who the fall guy would be should United land the type of player he feels they need. Rooney has now had just one shot on target and created two chances in his last four Premier League matches, per WhoScored.com.

"If you put two more players into Manchester United's team, say a Gareth Bale or a Cristiano Ronaldo into that team, that team could win the league," opined Neville (h/t Samuel Luckhurst of Manchester Evening News).

"But they need that matchwinner, that Neymar, that Luis Suarez, the one that is going to light up a game and score one or two goals to take it away, then all of a sudden they would look like a Barcelona, because they're dominating possession, making teams look foolish," he added.

In mining Vardy's rags to riches tale to create a narrative that makes good copy, it's easy to underplay the role Claudio Ranieri has played in his metamorphosis. The common consensus is that the affable Italian's decision to rein in his natural inclination to tinker, hence the nickname, has been key to Leicester continuing on from where they left off last season in such good form. 

It would be to do a gross disservice, though, to portray him as some kind of night watchman. Nigel Pearson often used Vardy in a wide-left role last season, whereas this term, he's been very much the main man for Ranieri through the middle. It has been more subtle perhaps than usual, but Ranieri has made changes in both personnel and style.

That he has been given a disproportionate slim amount of credit in relation to that which has been afforded to his players, is of little doubt.

When it arrived, Vardy’s landmark strike was so true to Leicester’s modus operandi it seemed almost preordained. Ranieri’s side has counter-attacked all season with the clinical precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Prior to Saturday, they had remarkably been caught offside just four times.

Vardy's goal then, choreographed with a director's eye for composition, could not have been more in keeping had they commissioned an artist to encapsulate their remarkable campaign to date.

The effervescent meanderings of Riyad Mahrez, who has completed more dribbles than any other player this season on 48, along with the pugnacious promptings of Shinji Okazaki from deep, had already caused United’s back three no little consternation by the time Vardy notched his 14th goal of the season. Manchester United have managed 20 in total. 

Having plucked Daley Blind’s corner from the sky, Kasper Schmeichel’s first thought was to break. Left-back Christian Fuchs was similarly switched on as he alternated flanks with United napping to demand possession. The Austrian strode purposefully down the right to the halfway line; ahead of him Vardy had long since set-off. In breaking from his own box, he left Ashley Young looking like Wile E. Coyote in his wake, before curving the cutest of horizontal runs from left to right to hang off the shoulder of Matteo Darmian.

If Fuchs' pass went for a DNA test, let’s just say Xavi and Socrates would have some awkward explaining to do. Weighted to perfection it was a ball that begged to be dispatched.

Vardy needs no second invitation and after working it on to his right foot, the question to ponder was not whether he would beat David De Gea, but just how he might celebrate. That's quite some achievement given this was the first goal United have conceded in open play in over 14 hours in all competitions. 

Should Vardy extend his run with a goal at Swansea City on Saturday, he would match the top-flight record as set by Sheffield United’s Jimmy Dunne back in the 1931/32 season. It's also worth noting that nine of Vardy's 14 goals have come in matches Leicester have either drawn or won by a single goal. A flat-track bully he is most definitely not.

Rui Vieira/Associated Press/Associated Press

"United used to counter-attack like that," choked Neville, on co-commentary duty for Sky Sports.

Thereafter, in fairness to Manchester United, the improvement was significant if not necessarily any easier on the eye in terms of aesthetic appeal. Bastian Schweinsteiger's header off another Blind corner justified Van Gaal's decision to have his centre-half upfield taking set pieces, when otherwise it may have been criticised had Vardy's goal proved to be the winner.

Yet even taking a point away at the league leaders will not sate those that see the Dutchman's preoccupation with possession as being formulaic to the point of ad nauseam.

Having spent the best part of £200 million in shaping a side that included just three players on Saturday that started last season's corresponding fixture, a 5-3 defeat, it's fair to say Van Gaal's critics expect a lot more.

The Sunday Times' Hugh McIlvanney used his column to write a wonderfully waspish polemic in which he, in effect, accused Manchester United of being dull to the point of lulling the viewer into unconsciousness.

He wrote: 

"

He calls it a philosophy of football. Many watching from the stands think he could patent it as a sedative. What is certain is that as Louis van Gaal seeks to justify the style of play his management has brought to Manchester United, he has reason to be grateful for the distorting mirror of a Premier League season in which standards of performance and consistency among the country's major clubs would be flattered by being described as moderate.

[...]

These days he is Louis the Tranquilliser.

"

Sometimes it's best to know your place, so I'll leave the last word to football writing's doyen. Vardy would probably have hidden Hugh's quill. And that's why he's scaled the peaks with what he's got, while the rest of feed for scraps in the trough.

Costa comedy as Chelsea come good(ish) at Tottenham

Tim Ireland/Associated Press/Associated Press

From the good and the bad to the ugly.

There will be hand-wringing from those that see the Premier League as a deity, but for those of us who consume it as the pantomime beyond parody it has long since become, Diego Costa played the villain par excellence to enliven an otherwise subdued capital derby.

After a midweek tete-a-tete with his manager that saw the Brazil-born Spain striker publicly row with Jose Mourinho during Chelsea' s 4-0 win at Maccabi Tel Aviv, Costa was duly benched for Saturday's trip to Tottenham Hotspur.

Mourinho has since said that they made up with "kisses and cuddles," but clearly they are still sleeping in separate bedrooms. What parents tell the kids isn't always reflective of what's going on behind closed doors.

Tottenham supporters greeted Costa's comedy lackadaisical warm-up routine on the touchline with family friendly boos and hisses, apparently, while the rest of us squealed "he's behind you" in unison, as his bib-throwing proved considerably more accurate than his shooting has been of late.

A back-handed lobbed effort, that was not dissimilar to the outlandish Andy Murray shot that won the Davis Cup for Britain's tennis team the very same day, may not count as a shot on target in accordance with Opta's strict criteria, but it was close enough to hitting Mourinho for me. 

If ever there was a need for player-cam, and rest assured there has never previously been such a desire, this was the day. 

Mourinho, as relayed here by the Guardian, insisted in his post-match assessment of a goalless draw that keeps the most miniature of Chelsea renaissances ticking over, that his striker's behaviour was not a concern. 

"

If he wants to hurt me, it’s not with a bib. I have a good relationship with him, no problems.

I think Diego is very privileged because he was the last one to be (put) on the bench.

Everybody was on the bench. I kept him in the team for all these matches and today we thought the best strategy to play was this one. We are happy with the decision.

For me his behaviour was normal. He was ready to play when they went to warm up.

"

As ever with Mourinho, though, it's always best to sleep with one eye open.

The performance of Cesc Fabregas is worthy of scrutiny, too, but given a picture is worth a thousand words, when allied to the fact my word count has long since been rendered redundant, the video below more than sufficiently does the job. 

"

Cesc Fabregas' highlights from today pic.twitter.com/bwGM8GgsZn

— Football Funnys (@FootballFunnys) November 29, 2015"

At least Costa will have a Spanish speaker to chat to in the next few weeks.

Newcastle United's performance at Crystal Palace summed up perfectly

 Inevitable news coming out of Arsenal camp part I

Inevitable news coming out of Arsenal camp part II

 Inevitable news coming out of Arsenal camp part III 

And finally, from Anfield with love, we bring you...