FAN OPINION: New Year, New Vardy, and a Lost Leicester

Jamie Vardy is no stranger to breaking records. The skinny, Stocksbridge-born striker was the first Leicester player to score 100 goals in the Premier League, the first Leicester player to reach 100 top-flight goals since Arthur Lochhead in 1934/35, the oldest Premier League Golden Boot winner, and, of course, the holder of the record for scoring in 11 consecutive Premier League matches.

However, receiving the award for Serie A Player of the Month for November 2025, becoming the first English player in history to do so, is a truly astonishing achievement that ranks with any of his other records.

Four months into his Italian career, so far, he has scored four goals in 11 Serie A games, including strikes against Juventus, Atalanta and Bologna.

Vardy joined newly promoted Italian club Cremonese last summer after his Leicester contract expired. It was a surprising choice. It took nearly two months for Vardy to find a new club, with reports suggesting it was due in part to his wage demands and his desire to remain in the Premier League.

But as the summer days started to shorten, Vardy was approached by Cremonese sporting director Simone Giacchetta to discuss a potential move to the provincial Italian club. After a long Zoom call with Giacchetta and head coach Davide Nicola, Vardy was convinced.

While Vardy moving to a small, newly promoted club, who have only spent nine seasons in Serie A in their 120-year history, was surprising, there are certainly reasons it makes sense.

Cremonese are a club defined by a culture of defiance. They view doggedness and survival as virtues; the club’s local identity is central to fan culture, and the smallness of the city and the fanbase mean they are the archetypal underdog.

Vardy slots perfectly into that culture. These are values that he embodies, that surge through his body from his breakneck feet to his gel-spiked hair. On the pitch, Nicola has used Vardy selectively rather than sentimentally, managing his minutes and positioning him as a vertical outlet rather than a constant presser, allowing Cremonese to stay compact while still carrying threat in behind.

He has already been honoured with the nickname “StradiVardy,” a play on the name of Antonio Stradivari, a legend of the city and considered the greatest luthier in history. In Cremona, Vardy is not treated as a relic of a former life, but as a continuation of the club’s belief in craft, resilience, and survival against expectation.

Leicester City will always be the club Vardy is most associated with, and the season so far has been largely turgid for the Foxes. While, as of New Year’s Day, they sit only four points off the play-off positions, that belies the team’s performances over the last 24 games.

Leicester have often played without purpose, intensity, or any sense of cohesion. The nine wins so far this season have mostly come from individuals scoring low-xG “worldies” that place very thin paper over the canyon cracks at the club.

What Leicester are suffering from, and what Vardy’s summer departure represented, is a crisis of identity, not just on the pitch but as an institution. From chairman Khun Top right down to Patson Daka’s failed backflips, the club has no idea who they are or what their future direction should be.

This lack of identity has been reflected in constant tactical drift and incoherent recruitment, with signings that appear reactive rather than part of any long-term sporting vision.

Vardy has found a club who know themselves, who have a story they project onto the world, one that informs everything about Cremonese as an organisation.

None of this guarantees success, and time will ultimately judge whether the experiment holds, but the coherence of the idea itself already marks a contrast with what Vardy left behind.

With Leicester, there is no discernible plan, no sense of direction.

They are barely coasting along, a ship without a captain sailing closer and closer to the razor rocks of the cliff.