Hardy Vardy*

All strikers get on a roll. Even Darren Bent. Hell even Paul Mariner, a man who looked like a featherless goose and often played like one, managed a fine run of goalscoring for England once. Last night Wayne Rooney got on the scoresheet for Manchester United and equalled Denis Law's total for the club. Despite the fact that Wazza increasingly looks like a concrete-booted version of his teenage self, we might have to start acknowledging that his record speaks for itself.

But Jamie Vardy is a case apart. I think we've all played against a Vardy. This lad stalks across your ploughed field of a school pitch. Not a scrap of fat on him, possibly whiffs of the Silk Cut he just toked behind the hedge, and he's already spouting off about how these are nowt much to look at.

The whistle blows and he's off like a ferret, scooting over the furrows, elbows and knees in a geometric blur. He's nagging the back four, leaving his foot in, a one-man bundle of thorns. He's backing his blade-edged bones into the centre-halves, spinning and leaving their galumphing strides in his wake like a streamlined trout swimming through the legs of a twenty-stone fly-fisherman,

But obviously the lad's in the side for his pace, his nuisance value, his chippiness. He's Robbie Savage with a sensible haircut and a turn of speed. And you might have thought that except he's just waltzed round the keeper and slid in his third goal of the morning, having dinked him earlier and scuffed in a side-footer before that.

If this sort of lad gets anywhere in modern football then by the time he's nineteen someone's come along and knocked the edges off him, buffed him up, and made him fit for purpose. That is unless he falls through the cracks and ends up plying his humble trade in non-league footy. Then somehow the rougher, ruder parts stay unrefined.

Of course, Vardy's passage through non-league somewhat mirrors his staunchest advocate Ian Wright. Wrighty, currently hoping a pair of outsized Harry Potter specs might encourage you to believe that his enthusiastic burblings are laced with wisdom, sees a kindred spirit in Vardy. And to be fair Wrighty knows.

There's a bit of the attack dog in both, a relentlessness to their pursuit of vulnerable old centre-halves. Neither seem to know when to stop running. Both seem to be driven by the injustice of a premature dismissal from the realms of professional football.

Vardy hopped around from Halifax to Fleetwood, scoring goals for fun it seemed, until Leicester scooped him up for a record non-league fee. Wright schlepped around with Greenwich Borough and had a fortnight in jug before a Palace scout sought him out.

Wright thinks Vardy should be in the England squad permanently, which is difficult for some of us to contemplate. Theoretically there are riches available to Hodgson upfront - Kane, Sturridge, Sterling, Welbeck, Walcott - all of them swaggering away with proper elite football teams that get to play big matches all the time...

Except (1) half of them are injured almost perpetually and (2) what does Jamie lack in comparison? And (3) no I didn't mention Rooney and maybe that's cos he's not worth mentioning right now. Indeed Rooney is barely a year older than Vardy and yet the Leicester forward possesses much of what the England captain appears to have lost in the last couple of years: pace, passion, stamina, desire...

A bit ago I posted a blog with my England squad on it. Vardy was conspicuously absent. And I suppose it depends, such is the fickle way with us footy fans, and I don't mean this tantrically, on how long he can keep it up. And how he gets on when he's up against the likes of France and Germany.

And whether he can keep his gob shut in a casino of a Saturday night. At least he's apologised though eh? Unlike, say, former England captains who are struggling at club level at the moment and won't take advice from Welsh pundits.

So yes, Vardy on the bench at the very least. And give him a run-out down the middle rather that stalking the flanks. Let's see whether the flinty Yorkie has what it takes. And if he fails, he'll keep on bloody well trying anyway.

*Out of respect for the dignity of his personal conduct this season, this blog contains no reference to the manager and arch apologist of Chelsea Football Club, Jose Mourinho. And if you're disappointed with that, don't blame me. Blame everyone - fuck it - anyone else.