He is that ‘fox in the box’ we have been talking about and although he is a goalscorer I want to develop him as a team player so he is not obsessed by just scoring goals,” Arsène Wenger said of his £8m signing Francis Jeffers back in June 2001.
Almost 15 years to the day, Arsenal’s quest for that elusive striker took them to the door of Leicester’s Jamie Vardy. But while Jeffers – then a 20-year-old from Liverpool who had scored 18 goals in 37 Premier League starts for boyhood club Everton – ended up moving to the capital, Leicester’s top scorer decided to stay put despite Arsenal’s £20m bid triggering the 29-year-old’s release clause.
“I was in contact [with Vardy]. He wanted to stay here, it’s fantastic,” Claudio Ranieri said on Thursday, before being asked if his decision showed that the dynamics have shifted in the Premier League.
“No,” came the response. “It depends on the character of players, of the family. Jamie wanted to stay here. He wanted to say thank you to everybody – the chairman, the fans, his team-mates. To say: ‘We want to build again, I don’t want to go.’ He knows it will be hard but it’s good. He’s a fighter.”
Quite how Vardy’s choice was received by Wenger remains a mystery, although the Arsenal manager hinted this week there would be a story to tell in his next book as his side prepare to meet Leicester on Saturday afternoon.
Jeffers spent three years in north London, scoring just eight goals before being loaned back to Everton. He was eventually bought by Charlton for £2.6m – a move which began a nomadic journey down the leagues, taking in Blackburn, Sheffield Wednesday, Motherwell and a two-month spell at Accrington in 2013. Now 35, Jeffers was last seen working on a voluntary basis for Everton’s youth academy having failed to earn a move to Brunei DPMM in Singapore’s top flight.
Vardy appears unlikely to suffer the same fate following his meteoric rise from non-league to the England team. But after taking more than three weeks agonising over his future while at the European Championship before deciding to sign a new contract worth £100,000 a week, news of his rejection must have stuck in Wenger’s craw.
While Sylvain Wiltord ably filled the gap for a while in the Invincibles season, the Frenchman’s hopes of transforming Theo Walcott into an ace goal poacher to rival Arsenal’s former record scorer Ian Wright have failed to materialise. Despite his clear desire to add another striker to support the erratic Olivier Giroud, Wenger has not followed up his attempt to sign Vardy with any concrete bids for other reported targets, including Lyon’s Alexandre Lacazette, and resorted to fielding Alexis Sánchez up front for last Sunday’s 4-3 defeat to Liverpool.
“I think it is worth trying as he has the quality to go behind,” he said of the Chile forward. “Honestly, he did not have the most convincing game. I think as well he is one of them who is not completely ready physically.“On the flanks he uses a lot of energy by chasing back and I would like to use his energy sometimes a bit more efficiently by going behind the defenders as he is a good finisher. He has played centre forward at Barcelona, you know.
“It is an important season for Theo, because last year he had a difficult period,” added Wenger. “He can play as a striker and his numbers are excellent when he plays up front. We have Giroud, Sánchez, Walcott, [Chuba Akpom] and [Yaya] Sanogo who is still here but is injured at the moment – the players we buy have to be better.
“I believe a club like ours is focused on giving chances to the players we develop. We have a few strikers who have a chance, if we find the right players we buy. But if you ask people ‘give me names’, you see it is not that easy – look at a club like Real Madrid, who have they bought? Up front, it is very difficult.”
Given the long-term injuries to Gabriel Paulista and Per Mertesacker, however, Wenger has other priorities right now. Laurent Koscielny may be risked for the trip to face last season’s most prolific duo in Vardy and Riyad Mahrez – who committed his future to Leicester this week amid reported interest from Arsenal – after Liverpool ran riot against the new signing Rob Holding and his defensive partner Calum Chambers. A move for Valencia’s Shkodran Mustafi has yet to materialise, while Atlético Madrid’s outstanding Uruguayan José Giménez has also been linked with a £40m move.
Yet if Arsenal’s start to the season was less than ideal, Leicester’s attempt to defend the title they won so miraculously in May has yet to take off. Saturday’s surprise defeat to promoted Hull was preceded by a run of three losses in glamorous pre-season games against Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and the Community Shield against Manchester United, meaning their last victory came against the National League North side Nuneaton Town on 23 July.
With Mahrez’s future now resolved, though, Ranieri is expecting the form which helped them finish 10 points clear of runners-up Arsenal to make a swift return. “I hope everybody plays with an extra edge,” he replied when asked if Vardy would have a point to prove . “No, no, no. We have only to prove to ourselves that we are stronger, that we want to win.”
