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There is still proof of Leicester’s penchant for the improbable and it comes in the inimitable figure of Jamie Vardy. His career has been an exercise in the remarkable, and equalising against a Tottenham team who had appeared utterly dominant ranks low in his list of unlikely feats. But as long as Leicester have the last remnant of their title-winning team, there is the sense they can conjure some of the spirit of 5000-1 outsiders.
And if those were scarcely the odds before Vardy levelled, Leicester’s return to the top flight, eight years after they won it, was shaping up as a chastening affair. For almost an hour, they were outclassed. But not, it transpired, out of the game. Steve Cooper became the eighth Leicester manager to benefit from a Vardy goal, his own introduction to a new club smoothed by a man signed by Nigel Pearson.
And the Vardy story, one so outlandish it once attracted Hollywood’s attention, always has another chapter. He was playing in non-league at 25. He is back in the Premier League at 37. It is not a normal trajectory but then Vardy and normality parted company quite some time ago. In a match when Tottenham’s £65m signing Dominic Solanke had seemed the striker likeliest to score, when the Leicester luminary shining was the returning James Maddison, Vardy contrived to upstage both. Maddison, at least, should not be surprised. He has seen this before.
Vardy had been a spectator for much of the first half, stranded apart from his teammates, outpaced when in a race with Tottenham defenders. He had not looked fit; indeed, the pre-match expectation was that he was not. But, Cooper had said, Vardy had pronounced himself able to play. And even as the legs seemed slower, the goalscoring instincts were still intact.
When Abdul Fatawu chipped a cross to the far post, unmarked, having evaded the Spurs scorer Pedro Porro, Vardy headed in. It could have been the first of a swift double. Vardy raced on to the newcomer Facundo Buonanotte’s pass and rifled a shot that Guglielmo Vicario parried, knocked off his feet by its power. His evening featured two shots on target and just three completed passes; a sign of how little possession Leicester had but also of the way his game has evolved. He departed, though, to a standing ovation. He had scored his 137th Premier League goal, roused a previously subdued stadium and shifted the momentum. It could have yielded a winner without him: substitute Kasey McAteer headed onto the roof of the net and Wilfred Ndidi, bursting forward, drew a diving save from Vicario. But Leicester, unlike their fellow promoted clubs, started their season with a draw.
For Tottenham, a point felt a meagre return for their early excellence. Their evening went wrong in different respects. The loss of Rodrigo Bentancur, stretchered off after being given oxygen following a head injury, presents a concern. Two points escaped their grasp just when they seemed to be highlighting Leicester’s shortcomings,
City’s susceptibility to the aerial ball was apparent even before the opener. They looked frail at set-pieces as Ndidi had to hook the ball off his own line and Cristian Romero headed just wide. Maddison, meanwhile, allied set-piece expertise with class in possession.
Leicester needed few reminders he can be the creator supreme. He nevertheless provided one, marking his first return to the King Power since his 2023 sale with a curled cross. Porro ghosted in to head home, the Spaniard materialising near the penalty spot. This felt like Ange Postecoglou’s vision, given his emphasis on attacking, inverted full-backs.
There was a new pillar in his rebuild. Solanke was parachuted in for his debut; other managers have held their major summer signings back but Postecoglou thrust the £65m striker into action. Solanke showed he can provide a focal point to the attack in a way Heung-Min Son does not. Mats Hermansen saved first a diving header, then a towering one, then a shot on the turn. But if a goal appeared to be coming for a centre-forward, Leicester’s veteran attacker instead claimed it.
It felt doubly fitting. Leicester paid tribute to Craig Shakespeare, assistant manager in the title-winning team, among those who helped Vardy become a champion. Relegation in 2023 was a reminder that the unpredictability of sport can cost Leicester, too. But if drama is a constant, after a 97-point campaign last season, and with a probable deduction to come this, Cooper, the Nottingham Forest icon who has arrived at their Midlands rivals, traded Enzo Maresca’s permanent possession for defensive resolve. Leicester were penned in, put under pressure and yet ended up buoyant and, almost, winners. For Cooper, it was a first glimpse of the Vardy effect. For Leicester, yet another.
