Imagining a Chelsea Side with Jamie Vardy Leading the Attack

Give Chelsea Diego Costa's 13 Premier League goals at this stage last season, and we wouldn't be talking about how the champions have struggled this term.

Only we are.

Costa has scored just three times in the league all season. The more that record carries on, the more we can expect Chelsea to toil.

As they face Leicester City on Monday evening, the contrast between both clubs' strikers is significant. While Costa struggles, the Foxes' Jamie Vardy continues to excel.

He's already broken the record for scoring in consecutive Premier League matches this season, and despite failing to make it 12 in a row against Swansea City last week, Vardy's in the form of his life.

Indeed, looking at Chelsea and the Foxes, the tables have turned spectacularly and it's articulated best through their front men.

By December last season, Vardy had just one goal to his name in all competitions. Now he's an England international with 14 goals, bettering Costa's 2014/15 form when he was the league's deadliest striker ahead of Christmas.

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Leicester were rock bottom after their first 15 games, with Chelsea on top. The points difference was a massive 26. Now it's Claudio Ranieri's men who boast a 17-point advantage.

That's a swing of landslide proportions, and it's largely thanks to the form of Vardy.

Let's clear this up: This article isn't geared toward suggesting Chelsea should sign Vardy. Nor is it leaning toward a rumour the club is interested in snapping him up.

What we're identifying is how an in-form striker would have transformed Chelsea's struggling season.

The defeats they have suffered would have been victories, draws turned into wins. The fear factor that has vanished like cigarette smoke would still be prevalent for the reigning champions.

Chelsea haven't been a threat in front of goal all season, and it's exactly that which has been their downfall.

Shortly before he took up residence at the Mestalla as Valencia manager, Gary Neville described Vardy's emergence this term as a "meteoric rise" on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football:

Neville explained:

"

The biggest jump in someways is the meteoric rise in the past 12 months. You've got to remember that [Vardy] only scored 20 goals in 63 appearances in the Championship. ... The reports that were coming through were that he was raw, a little bit erratic in front of goal, but lightening quick and was a handful. ... He was unpolished last season. You look at him now and he's a fantastic finisher."

"

Vardy's everything that Costa was, and that's meant Leicester's deficiencies elsewhere have been papered over.

It's a factor Ranieri has openly discussed himself, lamenting the fact that his team has struggled to keep clean sheets.

His offering of free pizza every time his players shut out the opposition has been a source of humour for many, yet there is a serious point the manager has tried to get across.

Leicester may well have topped the table this term—and on current form look to be mounting a credible title challenge—but defensively they have been found wanting.

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They have kept just three clean sheets in the league all season. Despite being 15th heading into Monday's encounter, Chelsea have kept four.

The importance of Vardy becomes clearer still when we consider the goals the Foxes have conceded. Their 21 is just three shy of Chelsea's.

Mourinho's men have had their own problems at the back, but with no striker, they haven't been able to mask them.

Leicester's defensive record is the worst in the Premier League's top 10. In the league as a whole, only seven teams have conceded more.

Defensively, that's not championship-winning form. It's midtable at best, especially when we consider that Chelsea shipped just 32 over the course of 2014/15.

Considering those all-important goals scored, however, no teams better it.

It tells us that so long as Vardy—and Riyad Mahrez, let's not forget—keeps scoring goals, this anomaly with Leicester will long continue.

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That pair are doing for Leicester what Costa and Eden Hazard did for Chelsea. And now Mourinho's stars are not providing the same level of threat—the defensive frailties are becoming ever more amplified.

To remind us of Costa's tally in mid-December last year, those extra 10 goals added to his return this season would put the Blues level with Arsenal on 27 goals.

Suddenly the 24 they have conceded don't appear as bad. It would mean they are at least coping, which we know they aren't.

Of course, Vardy is about much more than goals. As Neville highlighted in his superb analysis of his form this season, the intensity and commitment he's provided has played a big part in Leicester being capable of playing football in the right areas.

It's from there where the goals have come, and despite what's going on at the back, Leicester have outscored their opponents.

Were Vardy performing to those same levels in a Chelsea shirt, we wouldn't be talking about a potential relegation scrap. The top four would be on, and Chelsea's entire season would look very different.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes