Jamie vardy and riyad mahrez going nowhere – leicester supervisor claudio ranieri

CLAUDIO Ranieri described as “unbelievable” Leicester City’s season to date and the Foxes have undeniably been the Premier League’s surprise package.

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They were helped, however, by the fact that the Midas touch appears to have deserted Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez for now as they wasted golden opportunities to get Leicester back to winning ways after a largely unproductive Christmas programme.

Earlier, Vardy, who remains the Premier League’s joint-top scorer, hit the post from eight yards out as he looked to dink the ball over Bournemouth goalkeeper Artur Boruc, rather than instinctively pick out that bottom corner as he had done until very recently.

Defender Simon Francis was sent off for Bournemouth after 57 minutes for taking down Jamie Vardy in the penalty area. Though as we learned with the Stones saga over the summer, with the amount of money flowing into the league, basically no team ever is forced into selling for any amount of money nowadays. Vardy, for missing an excellent chance to add to his burgeoning tally of goals as he struck the post in the first half, Mahrez for missing a penalty in the second.

“We are a solid team and we want to continue together with everybody”.

“Today we made a lot of mistakes with the last pass. We were too anxious to score a goal”.

Bournemouth should have claimed the lead just four minutes later, but striker Josh King contrived to head wide from close range when it would have been easier to score.

Vardy saw his goal-bound effort saved by Cherries keeper Artur Boruc in the 51st minute, with Albrighton creating the chance with a pinpoint pass.

They dropped more points on Saturday despite playing for more than half an hour against 10 men following Simon Francis’ red card.

Mahrez hit the spot kick to the right and Boruc flew across, got both hands behind the ball to make a save that perhaps was a case of justice done.

Title rivals Manchester City and Arsenal face Champions League ties with Dynamo Kiev and Barcelona respectively when that competition resumes in February, while City also have a League Cup semi-final against Stoke to contest.

Vardy now pockets £40,000-per-week and has two-and-a-half years to run on his current deal and it’s understood that an offer to tie him down and boost his earnings is set to be put forward.