Nicotine, Red Bull, gym-dodging: give thanks for England's unconventional Jamie Vardy

Leicester striker is not your typical modern-day footballer

Jamie Vardy celebrates his goal (Getty)

Jamie Vardy doesn’t go in for platitudes. He generally only stops to discuss football with journalists when his name is inked on to the list which is in the England dressing room after each game. His answers are short, clipped and delivered with the inference that he doesn’t know why you think you’re entitled to an answer.

Even when Vardy stepped up to receive the Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year award in London last month you sensed it was as much as he could to withhold his feelings about the reporting of his life off the field. There’s always an edge.

But though clubs, countries and national associations like some rich choreography, the maverick tendency in Vardy is welcome. He’s arrived at this level far too late to waste time on artifice. And besides - the player who lives life off the cuff – nicotine, Red Bull, not so much gym – is the one who plays off the cuff.

More absorbed souls than he would have found a senior international tournament debut, aged 29, a daunting experience. Vardy demonstrated in his display against Wales that he won’t be thinking too much about it. He’s just obsessed with getting the football played in for him to run on to and all of the rest is white noise. Watch Vardy off the ball next time you can and you will see his obsession with getting the pass supplied. He’s always got his hand up, wanting it given.

Daniel Sturridge, meantime, is not always so ready to give it. The Liverpool player was physically and psychologically immense against Wales in Lens, powering through the opposition which illustrated by force of comparison just how much Raheem Sterling’s confidence seemed shot. He can be a law unto himself at times, though. Vardy may find himself receiving less ball than he wants from Sturridge. They are not a heaven-sent strike force.

If the two do, as The Independent’s Danny Higginbotham argues, become Roy Hodgson’s two-pronged strike force as England’s tournament continues, Vardy won’t shrink from telling Sturridge how much delivery he expects, though, and so much the better.

Some who like their strikers more straight-laced will say that Vardy’s aversion to the gym will tell, though he is old enough now to have found out by now how much of that work he needs. His comments late on Thursday - “If I go in the gym it will slow me down. I don’t go in for weights or anything like that” – made sense.

Players operating on the bursts of pace worry about too much muscle bulk. It’s too much time in the gym which has left Ross Barkley too muscular and looking short of breaking into England’s European Championship side.

Much about Vardy is unconventional. If the testimony of Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, son of the owner of Leicester City and a vice-chairman of the club, is to be believed, he was regularly arriving for training worst for wear after drinking, when he first signed for £1m from non-League Fleetwood Town in 2012.

Srivaddhanaprabha says he spoke to Vardy personally, told him he was happy to let his contract run out and suggests the warning might have helped. “His physicality wasn't as good as it is now,” he said. “We know he had explosive acceleration, but we simply had no idea he could be this good. He's adapting, working on fitness training, he's turned into a new person. And that's better.”

Jamie Vardy comes on at half-time against Wales (Getty)

If he looked short on physique, Vardy’s unconventional ways might be a problem but they’re not. His metabolism means he doesn’t carry weight. His whippet-like frame provides the pace which is the essential component off his game. “Vards is Vards,” says Adam Lallana. “I think everyone is unique in different ways. Everyone has their little traits they do, in the gym or what they do off the pitch or before a game – but he is a defender's nightmare."

It would have been nice to be served up the line by Vardy that he feels his contribution against Wales has made him a contender to start against Slovakia. But no. “That’s up to the boss. He picks the team that he thinks will get the result. It’s as simple as that. Then it’s up to me to put the extra effort into training to try to dislodge that.” He doesn’t make it easy for anyone.