From non-League to England like me, he should start at Euros
KEVIN PHILLIPS played alongside Jamie Vardy in the second half of Leicester’s Championship promotion campaign in 2013-14 and became their attacking coach upon his retirement that summer. Like Vardy, Phillips began at non-League level, joining Watford from Baldock Town. Here is his insight on English football’s man of the moment.
EVEN if Jamie Vardy only gets five or six more goals up until the end of the season, he should still be on the plane to France for Euro 2016 because he offers something we haven’t got in the England squad. He has raw pace.
Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck have injury problems and Wayne Rooney is experiencing a loss of form at the moment. Harry Kane is bang in form, but so is Jamie.
If he does keep up this form, he can expect not just to be on the plane but starting for England, in my opinion.
It was a shame he didn’t get the chance to show what he can do in the recent friendlies against Spain and France, but he got injured. I was telling everyone he should start as centre-forward.
In my time at Leicester we tried to play him out on the left of a three, and we never saw a good game from him. He was frustrated and didn’t like it. If you want the best out of Jamie, you play him down the middle.
In that role he has caused some of the best defenders in Europe all kinds of problems. Manchester United and Arsenal have struggled against him, so he can certainly do it at international level.
You have to give huge credit to Jamie for the run he has been on. Last season he scored five Premier League goals but I could always see potential there.
I must admit I’ve been surprised about his standard of finishing, though. It has been incredible. His two goals against Arsenal really cemented for me that he had taken on board the instructions we were trying to give him in training during my time at Leicester.
Both those goals against Arsene Wenger’s team showed composure, finesse, and an ability to pick the right spot. He did not try to smash the leather off the ball, which is what he did fairly often last season.
His recent strike at West Brom, the one-on-one after running clear, also illustrated his development. I believe last season he may have missed that, perhaps going for pure power. Here he found the corner. Believe me, they are the hardest chances to convert. You have an awfully long time to think about where you’re going to put the ball. Now, he has frequently shown a calm head.
In terms of specific sessions, we often practised one-on-ones with the goalkeeper — even though centre-forwards don’t tend to — purely because Jamie has that speed to regularly get in behind. He’s got very much better at it, as he showed again last night against United.
Jamie is very much his own person. He could be very hard to work with on some days but on others very easy. He is a great lad but if you try to tell him something, he has always got an answer coming back at you.
At the beginning I found that difficult to accept. But that’s just the way he is. He puts that facade up that he is not really listening, but obviously he is.
When he came to the club for £1million from Fleetwood Town he found things tough at first, which is what you would expect coming from non-League.
Jamie knew about the path I came through. But when you talk to players you don’t really want to go on about that, you simply try to help them. The good thing is I could relate to what he was going through.
This, though, has been an incredible rise in such a short space of time. Jamie is in a real good place now and long may that continue.
It happened to me fairly quickly, too. I was at Watford for two-and-a-half years then when I went to Sunderland — bang! I scored 35 goals, then 28 goals, then 30 in the Premier League.
Strikers live on confidence and when you get one, two ... you go out and believe you are going to score in every game. Jamie is playing like that at the minute.
Can he score 30 Premier League goals? Why not?
Jamie doesn’t just rely on other people creating chances for him, he can create his own with his pace. He just needs to keep himself fit.