Jamie Vardy suffers Leicester nightmare after ‘massively bad’ influence accusation

Jamie Vardy’s first game since he announced he’s leaving Leicester at the end of the season didn’t go to plan, with the captain seeing his penalty saved at Wolves

Jamie Vardy was hoping for a positive performance for Leicester against Wolves on Saturday after announcing his departure from the club at the end of the season. But the misery continued for the Foxes – and Vardy had particular reason to be unhappy as Wolves romped to a 3-0 win.

Matheus Cunha was the star of the show, scoring the first and setting up the next two goals as Wolves made it six straight wins in the Premier League. Leicester have already been relegated back to the Championship, yet their 24th defeat of the league season still hurt, moving them one short of the club’s all-time lows of 25 in 1977/78 and 1994/95.

Vardy had the chance to give the long-suffering travelling fans something to cheer when Jose Sa was adjudged to have fouled the Leicester captain in the box. But the veteran striker saw his spot-kick saved by the Wolves goalkeeper, who then celebrated wildly.

It leaves Vardy on 198 goals for Leicester with four games left before he departs. “We had the penalty with Jamie,” Leicester’s beleaguered manager Ruud van Nistelrooy told Match of the Day. “That was so unfortunate. I really wanted him to score to get us back in the game but also for himself. That summed the game up.”

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Vardy joined the Foxes from Fleetwood for £1million in 2012, has made 497 appearances for the club and is the third-highest scorer in the club’s history. Yet with their relegation confirmed, Richard Keys has claimed that his impact on the club hasn’t been entirely positive.

“A fairytale career for Jamie Vardy,” Keys said on beIN SPORTS while showing a graphic of Vardy’s statistics at Leicester before kick-off. “What that doesn’t show is the impact he’s had in that dressing room.”

Andy Gray said “massive” then asked if it was good or bad. Keys responded: “Well, I think a lot of massive good and massive bad, if you’ve been a coach there that he didn’t like. He came out this week and said a lot of the same things that [Niclas] Fullkrug said [about West Ham] and he’s right about their season.

“What he didn’t say was they rounded on Steve Cooper when they were outside of the drop zone, 12 games into the season when it looked like it could unfold with the same sort of outcome that Cooper had at [Nottingham] Forest.”

Van Nistelrooy has called on his players to keep going, despite having little to play for beyond pride now. “It’s a matter of course to keep that motivation and focus going for the team,” he said.

“There is a lot to play for, like Jamie’s last games. Supporting our captain should be motivation enough alone to push out everything that’s left. We look at all 17 teams above and acknowledge that we weren’t at that level. That is very clear, we have to accept it and move on.”

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