Leicester City's Jamie Vardy Will Be Defined By How Well He Plays After Breaking Record

It’s been a stunning run of form from Leicester City‘s Jamie Vardy this season. The striker is the top goalscorer in the Premier League and broke the EPL scoring record for consecutive games on Saturday against Manchester United. The previous record holder was Ruud van Nistelrooy who scored in ten consecutive games for United, but now Vardy finds himself on eleven consecutive games and still counting. The record has rightly taken on a life of it’s own at this stage, although it will be Vardy’s post-record form that will decide his future.

There have been reports of a move in the summer transfer window to clubs like United, Chelsea and Liverpool, but it’s too early to go down that road yet. Vardy is caught up in this run right now, undoubtedly. The momentum and confidence of the 29-year-old are at a peak, but it will be when this run ends that the level of Vardy can truly be judged.

Last season, Vardy only scored five goals during the his team’s first EPL campaign in a decade. Where was this form then? The two years prior when Leicester were in the Championship, Vardy scored 16 goals one season and four goals in the other — hardly record breaking in either campaign. So this is the first time Vardy has shown this kind of form in either of the top two leagues in the English game.

You cannot judge a player off of one goalscoring run, unless it gets to preposterous heights of 20-plus games, that is. What happens when the run ends and Vardy goes three or four games without a goal? What happens when his confidence dips and things start going against him rather than for him? Will his goal ratio return to more like last season’s total of five in 34 games? It’s unknown, really.

Right now, Vardy is a player in mega hot form. He deserves to be the name on everybody’s lips and the record-breaking run is getting all the spotlight it deserves. But when it comes to getting the chequebook out and putting a value on the striker, the months to come, rather than the months just gone, will be most telling in regards to Vardy’s true level.