My Greatest Leicester Goal: Jamie Vardy haunts The Hawthorns again (March 2018)

It was a few weeks into the 2015/16 season that I began to think Jamie Vardy’s technical ability was underrated by neutrals and the media.

He was still building a reputation at Premier League level as a quick centre-forward who would latch onto through balls and find the net. But for those of us who had seen even a small part of his trajectory from Stockbridge Park Steels to elite striker, there was clearly already much more to his all-round game.

Much of this improvement came down to confidence and a feeling of belonging. His England call-up at the end of the previous season and the goals he quickly scored at international level would have helped. But despite all of the evidence, there are still people now who don’t rate Vardy as anything more than a player with pace who can finish.

Even within the narrow range of his finishing, there are numerous examples of wonderful technique in his showreel. I’d sit them down in front of a few clips: the volleyed lob over Hugo Lloris in November 2017, the flick he lifted beyond Ederson in September 2020 and the ferocious strike against Stoke in April 2017.

But above all of those stands this remarkable goal Vardy scored at what appears for some reason to be one of his favourite places on Earth: The Hawthorns.

The timeline erupts

I’ll level with you. I wasn’t there. I was in a restaurant in Bilbao.

You see and hear about goals in all sorts of ways. You can be in the stands, watching the ball flash past the goalkeeper. You can listen to a commentator’s cry as the ball hits the net. Or you can be in a restaurant in Bilbao, occasionally checking your phone under the table and seeing your Twitter timeline erupt.

That was how I found out Jamie Vardy had struck a first-time volley, on his weaker foot, from a ball that came out of the air, squeezing it in at the far post of a net he already knew well.

I knew at that moment he’d be celebrating in the corner of the Birmingham Road End and the East Stand, invoking his annual fury from the same smattering of West Bromwich Albion season ticket holders.

Even though I wasn’t there, I had to select it here just to give myself an excuse to watch it again.

It’s a ridiculous goal, the kind of goal you end up replaying to work out how it was even possible. Why would you even try it? The ball should just ricochet off in the other direction.

The logical thing to do in that situation is to take a touch. It isn’t like we’re Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain or Real Madrid and our centre-forward knows he can try the audacious because another ten chances will come along in no time. It’s never been like that with Vardy, even at the height of the team’s powers.

That’s the key point for me - it wasn’t a fluke, because we know he has to make the most of his chances and he knows he’s capable of the spectacular.

But enough words. Just hit play.