Vardy's historic goal not enough as Leicester draw Manchester United
It was an evening that demonstrated two of the Premier League’s more familiar tropes this season. Jamie Vardy scored in his eleventh consecutive game and so broke the Premier League record. And Manchester United dominated the ball, and passed sideways repeatedly, rarely looking like turning that domination into goals. The 1-1 draw late Saturday night meant both sides falling a place, Leicester to second and United to third as Manchester City returned to the top of the table.
If Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur win on Sunday, the top five will be separated by just two points in those most unpredictable of Premier League seasons. In fact, the most predictable feature of the league these days is Vardy scoring.
On this weekend four years ago, he scored for Fleetwood Town in a 1-1 draw with Gateshead in the Conference, the fifth level of English football. He was 24 and it was far from certain he had the quality to make it into league football. On Saturday, Vardy broke the Premier League record set by Ruud van Nistelrooy. His rise has been extraordinary.
"I am obviously delighted, but the main thing was the performance," Vardy said after his historic day. "I think we put in a very good shift in today and in the end a point was probably a fair result. Obviously we've got a lot of pace in the team and I think counter-attacking is a big advantage for us. If we can break as quick we have, then obviously it is going to benefit the team.
It was also the first goal United had conceded in open play for 759 minutes. Vardy is now level with Stan Mortensen in 1950-51 and, if he scores away to Swansea City next week, he will pull level with the all-time top-flight record, set by Sheffield United’s Jimmy Dunne in 1931-32.
For half of the first half it had been typical of United this season. The shape may have been unfamiliar -- a sort of asymmetric 3-4-1-2 with Anthony Martial in a strange half-wide role and Ashley Young more advanced at left wing-back than Matteo Darmian on the other side -- but the style was typical. Lots of possession, lots of laborious build-up, and next to nothing in the way of penetration. There was Wayne Rooney, lumbering about, at 30 a sad hulk of the player he was at 20, and there, for once in a central role, was Juan Mata, the neatest of United’s passers.
Leicester isn’t the first side to hold United at arm’s length this season but it also offered an attacking threat. Admittedly it hadn’t really created a chance but there had been a vague sense of distant menace when, with 24 minutes played, Leicester broke following a United corner. Christian Fuchs, looking ostentatiously the other way, slid a pass though for Vardy. His pace meant the back four was out of the picture, and such is his confidence that as soon as he drew back his right foot it seemed a certainty the ball would find its way in. Sure enough, although David De Gea got a hand to his crisp strike, it slammed into the inside side-netting.
For a few minutes it seemed that Leicester might increase its lead. United struggled to hand the pace and trickery of Riyad Mahrez and the energy of Marc Albrighton. But slowly the game settled back into its earlier pattern and, in the final minute of the half, Schweinsteiger held off Shinji Okazaki to head in a Blind corner -- the first league goal United has scored from a corner in two seasons.
For United the second half brought more of the same, set-pieces continued to look its best chance of making a breakthrough. Schweinsteiger was denied a second from an Ashley Young free-kick. The ball bounced back towards Rooney, who was offside but troublingly sent his attempted follow up at 90 degrees to the goal, taking a kick in the ribs after making contact with his header. Even by his present sluggish standards, he never seemed quite right after that and was substituted in some discomfort after 68 minutes.
Beyond the vague sense of frustration, of a side that kept on failing to take advantage of the opportunities presented it by the other title contenders and of the opportunities its control of possession seemed to offer, Leicester’s threat remained. After a fine Mahrez break after 66 minutes, it took the outstretched foot of De Gea to deny Fernando Ulloa.
United huffed and puffed to the end, but there is little sign that it is any closer to the long-awaited click that has been a feature of Louis van Gaal sides in the past. United was as lacking imagination and spark as ever. Leicester had less of the ball but looked by far the more incisive. It’s becoming an increasingly familiar picture.
"I think after the disappointment against PSV, we have dominated the game," van Gaal said after the draw. "I have the feeling that we could have won this game and I think also - and I have said to my players - these kind of matches you have to win when you want to be champion at the end of the season.
"They could train the whole week to prepare and we didn't train after the game against PSV. I have a bad feeling because we could have won this game, but I am proud that they play like this."
