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Jamie Vardy is English. Jamie Vardy is leading the Premier League in scoring. Jamie Vardy is playing for an unheralded side in the midst of an unlikely title challenge. Jamie Vardy is being linked with a summer move to Liverpool Football Club. So it goes.
He’s been linked with Liverpool previously, largely on account of his English-ness and his goals-scoring-ness and that rumour mongers always need something eyeball-catching to talk about, but today’s item—courtesy of The Metro, who claim Liverpool are now "on alert"—has an added twist. It has a release clause.
This week, it emerged that Vardy had a £30M release clause inserted in his latest contract by Leicester City, setting the price for the 29-year-old who has scored 19 goals and six assists so far this season. As yet there’s no reason to believe Liverpool are actually interested, but if they were, that’s how much he’d cost.
Given that until this season no club would have paid even a third that for Vardy, it’s still an awfully steep price for a player who will turn 30 next season and has had one good season in the top flight. Even assuming he can repeat what he’s done for Leicester this season, he’s a player nearer the end of his career than the start.
That he might actually be worth £30M at this stage and with one good season under his belt—and that it would be a reasonable fee to pay for him, as The Metro seem to believe—is the definition of English premium. And for what it’s worth, no journalists with ties to Liverpool actually think the club is interested.
Following news of his release clause, Vardy was also quickly linked with Chelsea, who have similarly shown no signs of being genuinely interested in him at any point this season but are a struggling traditional power with money to spend, like Liverpool making them an obvious choice to link Vardy to.