They left Leicester's 0-0 draw with Bournemouth until last on Match of the Day on Saturday night – presumably once they took out all the cut-away shots of Jamie Vardy's agent sweating buckets up in the stands, there wasn't a whole lot left to show. Vardy had four chances but took none of them, making it one goal in six games. This is a bad time to start getting gun-shy.
The Premier League has always been two distinct sports, one played on the pitch and one off it.
But there is something uniquely fascinating about this moment in time, when TV money has changed the rules of English football, at least for a while. And right at the nexus of that fascination is what would have been a ludicrous idea not too long ago, ie that Vardy might not leave Leicester this month.
Go back a couple of seasons and this wouldn’t even be a conversation. The number of big clubs struggling for goals or depending too much on one player for them would make it all very simple.
Vardy would be playing in the FA Cup next weekend for United or Chelsea or Liverpool or Tottenham and if he wasn't, it would be because Leicester were making a token gesture at playing hard to get. Big club money would have its say in the end.
In the money
But in the here and now, Leicester can afford to dig in. Claudio Ranieri made a big show of ordering up champagne for his players after the draw with Bournemouth since it moved them onto 40 points. The weight of TV money coming their way is such that they will automatically become one of the richest clubs in the world just by dint of staying in the division. They will earn just a few million less in TV money than Barcelona over the coming year.
And in this new reality, clubs are managing to hang on to players. John Stones didn't go to Chelsea, Harry Kane didn't go to United. The fact that both big clubs have manifestly suffered from not plucking Stones and Kane like the low-to-medium-hanging fruit they would have been in the past can only have bred a certain confidence around the league. There aren't just four big clubs now. In a global game, they're all big.
Life is slippery though. And Premier League life is exponentially more slippery than yours and mine. Which is what makes the next few weeks of Vardy’s life so interesting to watch.
There's a great passage in last year's best football book Living on the Volcano, in which Brendan Rodgers – he was Liverpool manager at the time – explains why the numbers 17 x 12 = 204 are scribbled on a sheet of paper lying on his desk.
“Here’s a boy I had in here this morning,” he says. “He’s 18. So I am saying to him: ‘You’ve got 17 years left in the game, if you’re a really successful player, if you look after yourself and if you’re lucky with injuries. You will play until you’re 35 years of age, right?
“ ‘So look, 17 years multiplied by 12 is 204. You’ve got 204 pay packets left in your lifetime as a player. And see at the end of this month, that becomes 203. All those wage packets you’ve had when you’re 35 must keep you for a lifetime, until you’re 80. That’s money to look after your mum, your dad, your kids, your family.’”
Vardy is 29 next Monday. When he was 24, he was earning £300 a week from football and had to give up a factory job because heavy lifting was hurting his back. He doesn’t have those 204 pay packets to set up the rest of his life. Best case scenario, he probably has about 65-70.
Tasty contract
One way or the other, he is going to sign a tasty contract in the coming weeks. It will either be an extended deal with Leicester, apparently doubling his wages to £90,000 a week or a massive move for £30 million-plus with a thick signing-on bonus and a weekly six-figure wedge.
It’s all telephone numbers stuff but even so, there’s a certain dramatic tension at the heart of it that doesn’t really come into play in a lot of other transfer sagas.
Stones and Kane could stay put because they were both young, both at established Premier League clubs and both had the luxury of trusting in where they were and where it would take them. Vardy might get a big move in the summer or he might not. Leicester might be in the Champions League next year or they might not. The next four months have no guarantees attached.
Vardy’s talent is a particularly specialised one – the dart in behind the last defender, the early and precise finish. It wouldn’t take much of a fall-off in his pace or his radar for him to see out the rest of the season scoring once every four or five games – especially in a Leicester team the rest of the league have had time to analyse properly now. Still think he’ll hang around to find out how good their analysis is? Would you?
Leicester are the story of the season and good luck to them. But in the case of Jamie Vardy, it will be a surprise if the old rules don't still apply.
