Emile Heskey has nothing but glowing praise for Jamie Vardy after the Leicester City hero inspired their 5-2 dismantling of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, speaking exclusively to HITC.
Vardy’s fondness for skittle-infused sprits might be the stuff of legend but, at the age of 33, the Foxes’ very own ‘fox-in-the-box’ is ageing like a vintage vin.
Fresh from becoming the oldest Golden Boot winner in Premier League history last term, Leicester’s number nine looked more like a teenage tearaway than a near-34-year-old veteran during another display of electric movement and ruthless finishing in the north west.
Vardy even produced an early Goal of the Season contender during Sunday’s stunning win.
Sandwiched by two nerveless penalties, Vardy bamboozled Ederson Moraes with what Gary Neville described quite brilliantly as a ‘Cruyff dink’.
And Heskey, a famous Leicester striker in his own right, cannot help but marvel at a man who makes confounding the critics an annual tradition these days.
“God knows (how he keeps getting better). I need some of that don’t I!,” Heskey says after Vardy became the oldest player to net a Premier League hat-trick since the legendary Teddy Sheringham in 2003.
“When you’re looking at players, and all managers will tell you this, they start to get slower and they start to wane a little bit (as they get older). But it seems that he’s going the other way! He could sign a three-year deal, no problem.
“He seems to be getting faster, sharper, his finishing is getting more astute. He’s phenomenal at the minute. He’s getting better and better.”
With 21 touches, the lowest of any outfield starter on a bracing Manchester afternoon, Vardy’s performance was as ruthless and efficient as you will find anywhere in Europe this season.
The former England international scored with his every seventh touch of the ball at the Etihad.
It was he who won two of his side’s three penalties too after Kyle Walker and Eric Garcia clattered into the evergreen Leicester legend.
“(He is) conserving energy and doing it at the right times,” Heskey said when asked just how on earth Vardy remains as fresh as the proverbial daisy eight months after his 33rd birthday.
“(When you’re young) you’re just running for the sake of running at times. I think he and Brendan have sat down and thought about where to utilise his energy and he’s just gone from strength to strength.
“When you’ve got all this energy as a young lad you can run where you want but you’re wasting energy at times. He picks the key moments to do it.”
It might have been the ‘Jamie Vardy show’ on Sunday but some of Leicester’s supporting cast made a telling impact of their own in one of the club’s greatest ever top-flight wins.
James Justin produced his finest Premier League performance to date while Nampalys Mendy stepped up brilliantly in Wilfried Ndidi’s absence.
Heskey, meanwhile, was full of praise for the ‘outstanding’ Youri Tielemens after he netted Leicester’s fifth from 12 yards.
But as long as Vardy continues to snigger in the face of Father Time, Leicester fans can dream that the 2020/21 campaign will be just as remarkable as 2015/16.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
