To celebrate 30 years of the Premier League, The Athletic is paying tribute to the 50 greatest individual performances in its history, as voted for by our writers. You can read Oliver Kay’s introduction to our Golden Games series (and the selection rules) here – as well as the full list of all the articles as they unfold.
Picking 50 from 309,949 options is an impossible task. You might not agree with their choices, you won’t agree with the order. They didn’t. It’s not intended as a definitive list. It’s a bit of fun, but hopefully a bit of fun you’ll enjoy between now and August.
Two players marked their first Premier League starts with a goal for Leicester City on September 21, 2014. One was Esteban Cambiasso, who had played for Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Argentina. The other was Jamie Vardy, who had played for Fleetwood Town, Halifax Town and Stocksbridge Park Steels.
Vardy was 27 years old and late to the Premier League party (he made up for lost time and hosted one of those at his house 20 months later, when the unthinkable happened and Leicester won the title). Manchester United were in town on a warm Sunday afternoon and, one way or another, Vardy was going to be noticed — he was sporting a mohawk haircut that was a throwback to his helter-skelter non-League days, when he would skip the gym and neck three cans of Monster (an energy drink) before training to put a spring in his step. Mixing Skittles with vodka came later.
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Enough of the past, though. Vardy’s performance against Louis van Gaal’s side at the King Power Stadium gave us a glimpse into the future. On a day when Robin van Persie grabbed his 135th Premier League goal, Vardy scored his first and, remarkably, registered four assists too.
Eight years later and Vardy is not just a member of the 100-goal club but up to 14th place, one position behind Van Persie, on the all-time Premier League goalscorers list. At the age of 35, he has 133 Premier League goals to his name — and counting.
Travelling back in time to revisit the United game is fascinating. For a start, it was the first time in 853 Premier League matches that United had surrendered a two-goal lead and lost. United had never before conceded four or more goals in a Premier League game against a newly-promoted team. It was also a rare occasion when six strikers were named in the two starting line-ups.
Amid the chaos — and it was absolute chaos at times — Angel Di Maria produced arguably his best moment in a United shirt. Except nobody was talking about Di Maria’s delightful chip afterwards. Or Radamel Falcao’s cross for the opener. Or Van Persie’s far post header. Or Wayne Rooney playing at the tip of a diamond. Vardy, outstanding in a scarcely believable 5-3 victory, upstaged the lot of them. By Vardy’s own admission, it was the game of his life.
“We knew he could cause a team like that problems because they hadn’t come across him before,” Matty James, who was brought on in the second half against United, tells The Athletic. “Everybody just kind of thought, ‘Oh, he’s just this non-League player that has done alright in the Championship’. That was the perception. But the sheer aggression that he had, and the determination that he wanted to prove to people that at the age he was at, that he could play in the Premier League… it was phenomenal. What happened put Vards on the map on a global stage.”
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With five minutes remaining, Vardy departed to a standing ovation, including applause from his own team-mates. Leonardo Ulloa, who had just scored Leicester’s fifth goal from the penalty spot after Tyler Blackett had been sent off for a professional foul on Vardy, pointed to his strike partner and urged the home supporters to respond.
61 mins ➡️ City 1️⃣ – 3️⃣ Man Utd
83 mins ➡️ City 5️⃣ – 3️⃣ Man Utd#LeiMun 🤪 pic.twitter.com/kTJcsvjKYb— Leicester City (@LCFC) February 2, 2019
As Vardy took a seat in the dugout next to Riyad Mahrez, who was an unused substitute that day (something else that makes you smile when you look back), Van Gaal wore the expression of a man who was struggling to process what he had just witnessed. That included the sight of Vardy setting off on a curved run — picture the first leg of the 4 x 100-metre relay — to press and harass Blackett, David de Gea and Chris Smalling, one after another. The only thing that was missing was a baton in his hand.
Three against one isn’t a fair fight, but the Leicester striker was like a man possessed. Smalling, brought on in the first half for the injured Jonny Evans, ended up making a hurried pass, the King Power Stadium roared its approval, and Vardy retreated, filled his lungs and prepared to do it all over again.
In years to come, Brendan Rodgers, Leicester’s current manager, talked to Vardy about being more selective with the moments when he chooses to press opponents, but there was no such thing as an off switch in his early days. The accelerator pedal seemed to be permanently pressed to the floor and nothing was a lost cause in his eyes.
Vardy brilliantly nicked the ball away from Marcos Rojo for Leicester’s first goal, barged Rafael da Silva, the other United full-back, out of the way in the lead-up to the second and outmuscled Blackett before the fifth. For someone who was new to the level, and had only been a professional footballer for two years, there was a healthy lack of respect for anyone in a United shirt.
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“Vards is intimidating because he backs himself, he’s a confident guy,” Dean Hammond, who started against United, tells The Athletic. “I’m sure there would have been a lot of verbal chat with the Man United defenders, especially at 3-3 when he was putting them under pressure.
“He’s a bit of a freak of nature, Vards, because he can run at his full pace for 90 minutes. And when he’s determined like that, shutting defenders down, he wins so many tackles. As a Man United defender, you know you’re not going to get time to play out. And he would chase everything, even if he doesn’t think he’ll get it, which then makes the Man United defender have to run even more. He’s just horrible to play against.”
Intriguingly, Van Gaal set up United in a midfield diamond, deploying Rooney behind Van Persie and Falcao, with Ander Herrera on the right, Di Maria on the left and Daley Blind at the base of midfield. It was gung-ho and ended up playing into Leicester’s hands, who bravely adopted the same formation and backed themselves to expose United’s weaknesses through Vardy’s pace.
“We did our research,” Vardy said immediately after the game. “Their attacking options are frightening. But the formation that they play, they leave a lot of space behind the full-backs and we set out early to exploit them in those positions because no centre-half likes to be dragged out wide, and we did that today. We created chances and literally every one has gone in the back of the net.”
That was true in every respect, right down to the fact that Leicester scored from each of their five attempts on target. At the same time, there had been no sign of what was to come when Di Maria elegantly lobbed the ball over the head of Kasper Schmeichel to put United 2-0 up after Van Persie’s opener.
Cue the first flash of brilliance from Vardy. Straight from the restart, De Laet clipped a pass along the Leicester right and Vardy, running on the blindside of Rojo, steered the ball away from the United left-back with a superb touch on the run. Swinging and missing with his left boot, Rojo did not even see Vardy coming. The Leicester striker took another touch and then, with the angle against him and space running out close to the byline, wrapped his foot around the ball to cross. His centre was perfect and Ulloa met it with a bullet header.
Strangely, though, it was the sight of United scoring a third goal, cheekily flicked past Schmeichel by Herrera just before the hour mark and on the back of a period of dominance from Van Gaal’s team, that initiated Leicester’s revival.
The lead-up to Leicester’s second goal was not dissimilar to the first, only this time, the move started on the left. Paul Konchesky floated a ball into the channel and Vardy, running diagonally across the front of Blackett — a trademark run now — got in behind Rafael with the help of a significant shoulder charge. On another day, it could have been a foul. “Nah, nah, it’s just strength, shoulder to shoulder,” Vardy said.
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Instead, it was Rafael who ended up being penalised after tangling with Vardy in the area seconds later. David Nugent scored from the spot and two minutes later, Leicester were level. Hammond’s wayward shot hit Vardy, who either expertly killed it dead for Cambiasso or got a little fortunate — take your pick — and the Argentinian drilled home.
“I think it was a scuffed, rushed shot. But let’s say it was a pass to Vards,” Hammond adds, laughing, about his own part in that goal. “It was a brilliant finish from Esteban after that. The roof came off the stadium — it was probably the loudest I’d heard the King Power.”
That decibel record stood for 15 minutes, up to when Vardy completed the turnaround. De Laet was the architect, pinching the ball from Juan Mata before driving forward on the right. With Blackett drawn to De Laet and Smalling caught upfield, the Leicester right-back put Vardy clean through. For probably the first time in the game, Vardy had time to think. How would he react?
The answer is, Vardy did think. He remembered the footage he had seen of De Gea in one-on-one scenarios — that rather unusual stance where he seeks to make the lower half of his body big rather than diving — and calmly slid the ball to the United keeper’s left.
It was controlled and composed and, given the quality of some of the other goals that he has scored since, makes you wonder what his Leicester team-mates thought about Michael Owen’s comments a couple of years later, when the former Liverpool striker said Vardy wasn’t a “natural finisher”, “doesn’t once lift his head”, and is the sort of goalscorer who relies a lot on luck.
“Sometimes he’ll go through and he’ll smack one and it will go into the bottom corner and you’ll think, ‘How’s he managed to do that?’,” James says. “But he is a natural finisher because he’s scored the goals he’s scored.
“You could have probably said that (remark that Owen made) in the first year (in the Premier League), but he’s in the 100 club now, he’s scored a ridiculous amount of goals for Leicester and he’s proven for England as well that he can score, so I think that comment doesn’t make as much sense any more. He’s an aggressive finisher, don’t get me wrong, but that’s what you want.”
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Leicester’s fifth and final goal against United arrived in the 82nd minute and once again Vardy was the central figure. Although De Laet’s ball forward was no more than hopeful, Vardy brushed aside Blackett and then, intelligently, slowed down as he closed in on goal. Blackett scythed him down, a red card followed, Ulloa scored from the spot and Vardy’s work was done.
Curiously, both Leicester and Vardy struggled in the weeks that followed. Leicester failed to win in 13 Premier League matches, while Vardy had to wait six months for his next top-flight goal. “It killed us a little bit,” James adds, reflecting on the United game and the way that it alerted other clubs to Leicester’s strengths.
By the end of the season, though, Vardy was scoring again and Leicester had pulled off their own version of the great escape to stay up. An England call-up followed for Vardy that summer, and we all know what happened the following season.
Hammond smiles when asked whether he saw Vardy’s career unfolding in the way that it did after the United game. “It’s a great question. And I’d be a liar if I said I thought that it could happen,” he replies.
“Did I think Vards had the ability? Yes. Did I think that he could score goals in the Premier League? Yes. Because of his pace and what a good finisher he is. Does it always work out for players like that? No.
“So, it’s credit to him for what he’s achieved. But I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Yeah, of course I thought he was going to go on and play for England and break records and score more than 100 goals in the Premier League’.
“He’s done amazing things.”
(Top graphic: Sam Richardson for The Athletic)
