17 hours ago
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CHELSEA will give Liverpool a ‘guard of honour’ before tomorrow’s Premier League match at Stamford Bridge.
And next weekend, presumably, Arsenal will do the same.
Chelsea give Manchester City a guard of honour in the 2022/23 seasonRichard Pelham / The Sun
GettyBut like so many other things in modern football, it’s something I will never understand. Frankly, I think it’s a load of old b*****ks.
It’s not so much a mark of respect as a humiliation for the team lining up to give the champions a little clap.
It is as if Chelsea and Arsenal and everyone who plays the champs for the rest of the season, is saying, ‘Well done, we’re perfectly happy you beat us’.
When my Watford team lost an FA Cup final to Manchester City, we had to stand and clap while they got their medals.
But that’s after the match, that’s fair enough.
I was never in a position where I was expected to be part of a ‘guard of honour’. During my top-flight days, Watford never played against a team who had already been confirmed as champions.
But if I had been in that situation, I’d have refused point blank.
That’s what Arsenal, Liverpool’s nearest challengers this season, should do next Sunday.
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That would really set down a marker for next season. No more Mr Nice Guys.
I’VE got quite a lot in common with Jamie Vardy.
We both came up from non-league football, through the Football League and into the top flight.
We both wore ankle tags while playing football after criminal convictions in our youth.
We both became long-serving club stalwarts, him at Leicester and me at Watford.
I’m pretty proud of what I achieved in the game, but Vardy . . . he’s something else.
This bloke is Roy of the Rovers. He is football’s greatest underdog story.
APHe won the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Golden Boot, he’s played for England and — unlike me — he got to leave his club on his own terms after 13 years of sterling service.
Vardy is 38, 18 months older than me and approximately 18st lighter!
But after announcing that he’s leaving Leicester, he can still do a serious job for someone in the Premier League next term.
Wolves are keen on him and I could see that happening. But, for me, Everton would be a great fit.
David Moyes will be bringing in a dozen or more players this summer for the Merseyside club’s new era in their new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.
And I’m sure he would love to have the option of Vardy. With his pace, he will always be dangerous coming off the bench against a tiring defence and he could still start in some matches.
Vardy is unconventional, a maverick. Right down to his fitness regime and diet – which has often included vodka, Skittles and the tobacco product, snus.
What I like most about Vardy is that he hasn’t tried to change one bit as a player or a bloke.
Some players might win the Premier League and try to reinvent themselves, thinking they’re a real all-round footballer. But Vardy sticks to what he has always done best.
He doesn’t drop back and try to dictate games, he just continues to dart in behind defences and score goals. Even this season, he’s scored eight times in a Leicester team that couldn’t open a front door, let alone a defence.
Scoring goals in a terrible team which creates very few chances is a seriously tough gig, but Vardy has managed it.
I get the Wrexham link — the Hollywood club meets the Hollywood footballer.
Ryan Reynolds and Co have brought in a lot of veteran players on their journey up from the National League to the Championship, so you can see why Vardy would fit in there.
But he would be a great option for many Premier League clubs and he could break Teddy Sheringham’s record as the oldest outfield player in the competition.
Teddy was playing for West Ham in the top flight not long before his 41st birthday.
PALeicester play Southampton today as two of the worst teams the English top-flight has ever known.
It’s sad what has happened to Leicester in recent years because what they achieved in winning the title in 2016 was probably the greatest story English football has ever known.
That was our first season in the top flight after winning promotion with Watford and at the start of the campaign, we’d have considered them to be one of our rivals for relegation.
But like everybody else, we couldn’t have been more wrong.
What a team that was. The quality of Vardy and Riyad Mahrez in attack, the midfield duo of N’Golo Kante and Danny Drinkwater was one of the best I ever played against.
During that season, Vardy broke Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Premier League record by scoring in 11 consecutive games.
Honestly, when you understand what an achievement it is to score in back-to-back Premier League games, your mind boggles at the idea of 11 in a row.
And people often forget Vardy’s strike partner, Shinji Okazaki. What a work-rate he had. He would come off the pitch like a race horse, literally with steam coming off him!
Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester played a 4-4-2 and their back four were old-fashioned defenders — head it, kick it, keep it out. And I mean that with the utmost respect.
One of them, the captain Wes Morgan, I knew pretty well. And after Leicester beat us that season he told me ‘mate, we are seriously good, a really special group of players’.
He said that they genuinely all got on brilliantly, they chose to socialise with each other all the time. And, believe me, that is really unusual, particularly at a Premier League club — or at any workplace, really.
And when Leicester were confirmed as champions, as Spurs failed to beat Chelsea in a war of a game on a Monday night, who was hosting the players’ house party to celebrate? Vardy, of course.
The last two home games of this miserable Leicester season will now be celebrations of Vardy’s career as they say farewell to a legend.
And rightly so, because he is a player who should inspire EVERYONE in the non-league and lower leagues.
Jamie Vardy is the miracle man.
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