VARDY HERNIA OP BLOW TO FOXES’ TITLE TILT
JAMIE VARDY faces an operation on his ongoing hip problem that leaves him facing a ‘few weeks’ on the sidelines. Leicester’s top scorer has been managing the issue throughout the season but the club’s medical team have decided that surgery can no longer be postponed — though they are hopeful he will be fit to face Liverpool on February 13. He will definitely miss tomorrow’s FA Cup tie at Brentford as well as the Premier League trip to Everton on Wednesday and the home game against Leeds next weekend. Manager Brendan Rodgers said: ‘It doesn’t keep him out for too long but it’s just a repair of the hernia area. ‘He can’t really put it off much longer. We were hoping to do it a few weeks back but this is a window where we can get it done and that will leave him with a good part of the season where he can be really influential for us. ‘It will depend on the recovery — it could be a week. It’s a minor operation but it will be around the recovery process. On a rough guess it will be a few weeks. ‘We were looking at doing it in the next international break, but we couldn’t. He has been in pain while he’s been in training and we’ve had to de-load his training to get him ready for the games. ‘We reached a point where we felt we had to get it done so we could benefit for the remainder of the season. We agreed this was the time and we have to carry on without him.’ Unless Vardy makes a speedy recovery, it would also be an uphill struggle to make the matches at Fulham on February 3 and at Wolves four days later. Vardy has scored 13 goals in all competitions and although he has failed to find the target in any of his last five matches, the 34-year-old is crucial to the way Leicester play. The Foxes are third in the table, two points adrift of leaders Manchester United, but Rodgers was bullish about his side’s ability to prosper without Vardy. He said: ‘We’ve played without him before and won games. When you don’t have one of the top strikers in the league available of course it’s disappointing but we’ve always tried to rely on the collective.’