Leicester City are planning for life after Jamie Vardy – but that’s not unusual for the club, manager Brendan Rodgers has said. Vardy is past the peak age of a typical Premier League striker. That has prompted questions over when City may have to look to a younger man to lead their line, and Rodgers said that search has already begun. But, he said City will have a player they could target to fill any position in the side, not just Vardy’s.
Brendan Rodgers said “My job is to maximise the best we can get out of Jamie Vardy while he’s here,” Rodgers said in his press conference ahead of the clash with Chelsea. Hopefully in my time here we’ve shown he’s developing, because I still believe even at that age you can still improve on and off the field, and he has shown that to me. He’s been absolutely brilliant. The backdrop to it is that the club will always have to be looking forward and planning forward, but not just in Jamie’s position, but in every position. It’s something that’s always an ongoing process. There are no plans at the moment to get anyone in, we’ve got a fully-fit squad virtually, which puts us in a really good place, Economically it’s really tough for us in this window, but it’s also about the availability of the right type of player. We’ll keep an eye on it from now until the end of the market to see what could be available, but it will probably be ones going out than ones coming in. There have been one or two (enquiries for Gray), but nothing concrete at the moment. We have a number of players who haven’t been playing as much, but our squad is really tight, so we can’t lose anyone really unless it’s of great benefit to the club. But we also have some players who may want some minutes, so we’ll see how that goes over the next couple of weeks.”
