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West Brom 0 - Leicester 1: Jamie Vardy shows what Claudio Ranieri was missing
HOW Claudio Ranieri must wonder what might have been if only Jamie Vardy hadn’t lost his goal-den touch.
Jamie Vardy celebrates after scoring against West Brom at the Hawthorns
The England striker scored only seven in his title-defending boss’s 32 games, and that included a hat-trick against Manchester City.
But what a transformation since The Tinkerman was pushed out of the door as he’s added eight since Craig Shakespeare slipped into Ranieri’s shoes!
And Leicester have now taken 19 points out of 27 since dumping the man who led them on an open-top bus tour of the city after their 5,000-1 Premier League winning miracle.
And had Vardy been anything but a shadow of the current player then Ranieri would still have been in his job.
Vardy’s goal, two minutes from the end of the first half, was so typical of last season’s vintage.
Gliding on to Shinji Okazaki’s slide-rule pass after a dreadful Salomon Rondon’s mistake just inside his own half, he delivered the perfect dinked finish over the on-rushing Ben Foster.
Jamie Vardy scoring Leicester's opening goal in the 1-0 win over West Brom
And Shakespeare said: “That goal epitomises Jamie Vardy as a striker.
“He is in that purple patch that sometimes strikers go through and he’s got a good head in front of goal.”
It sentenced the Baggies to a fourth defeat in a row and they’ve gone 42 days – and an agonising 465 minutes of action – since they last scored.
Baggies’ boss Tony Pulis said: “We have talked all week about Vardy in the change-over and we got caught.”