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Leicester sharpshooter Jamie Vardy reflects on "massive achievement"

Jamie Vardy scored a very important goal this month that saw him join an elite group of players, ...



Leicester sharpshooter Jamie V...
Soccer

Leicester sharpshooter Jamie Vardy reflects on "massive achievement"

Jamie Vardy scored a very important goal this month that saw him join an elite group of players, aka the Premier League 100 Club.

The Leicester City striker joins the likes of Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney, Sergio Aguero, Robbie Fowler, Robin van Persie, Robbie Keane and Ian Wright, all of whom have also scored over a century of goals in the English top-flight.

The 33-year-old hit two in the recent win against Crystal Palace to make it to 101 and has added to his tally with strikes against Arsenal and Bournemouth but he insists that he hasn't dwelled on it too much.

"It’s a massive achievement but it’s one of those, ‘yes you’ve done it’, but it’s all about the next game then, so you don’t really get time to have it sink in," Vardy told the official club website.

"It’s probably something that, when I finish football, I can look back on it and actually realise what it means.

"The season finishes and you get away to forget about football for a few weeks and then you’re straight back in to start the next season. So it’s all about constantly going and going."

The Foxes, like the rest of the clubs, have had a busy July with six matches in 19 days and their chances of a top four finish are hanging by a thread after last Sunday's defeat by Tottenham Hotspur.

Vardy admits that it has been tough and he really misses the roar of the crowd.

"It’s relentless but these are circumstances that no one could have foreseen happening so it’s one of them, we just have to get on with it," he said.

"There are not that many down days to recover properly but you’ve just got to make do the best that you can.

"It’s dramatically different, it really is. You’re used to be at King Power Stadium and there’s 30,000 fans there getting the noise going, but I think it’s like football when you were a kid.

"There’s no fans there, you’re just playing because that’s what you enjoy doing, what you wanted to do as a kid, so it’s one of those, you just have to try and blank it out that the fans are not going to be there and concentrate on the football side of it.

"In Non League, we used to get 100 fans, but you can hear every single one of them what they were saying, so it is different, whereas obviously now we can hear the staff and players."

The former England international's scored some peaches en route to his current tally of 103 but there is one goal in particular that he treasures the most.

It came in injury time in a 3-2 win away to West Bromwich Albion in 2015 and eased their Premier League relegation fears at the time while he also remembered his first of his tally against Manchester United at the start of that season.

"West Brom away, the year we stayed up [is my favourite] because of what it meant. We knew we had to win and the fact it happened like it did late on to get the victory just made it stick [with me]," said Vardy.

“It’s not one of my best technically, but definitely one of the most important. It was the start of what turned out to be a beautiful end to the season."

“It was massive [to beat United],” Vardy added. “We’d just been promoted, all the world-class players they had and so for us to come away 5-3 winners was really enjoyable.

“I’ve had a few of those dodgy hairstyles in my time so that’s another thing I can look back on!”

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