Claudio Ranieri says it’s premature to compare Jamie Vardy to Neymar

Claudio Ranieri dismisses the notion that Leicester City’s red-hot striker Jamie Vardy in on a par with Barcelona’s Neymar.

Vardy, the Premier League’s leading scorer with nine goals, suffered a wrist injury during the 2-2 draw with Southampton last weekend while Schlupp required stitches in a head wound at St Mary’s.

Pardew is a big fan of Italian Ranieri, who has managed at six clubs, including Juventus and Roma, as well as being national coach of Greece, since his last appearance in the Premier League in 2004 as Chelsea manager.

Fullback Danny Simpson has said that confidence continues to fly within the Leicester camp following our form, results and ability to take points from losing positions so far this season.

With Vardy and winger Riyad Mahrez firing on all cylinders in the early part of the new season, Leicester are fifth after nine games, three points behind Arsenal in second.

“We have to be very careful we don’t open ourselves up to a counter-attack, it’s a strong team and Claudio has built on that”. Nobody goes in January – not Jamie, not Riyad, nobody.

Now, Jamie Vardy is clearly an obvious choice and is already selected by many, but I’m not tipping the player to do well, I’m actually exploring the idea of making him a front-runner out of our candidates for the captain’s armband.

“He is playing really well and I hope he can continue but football is unusual”, said Ranieri.

There hasn’t been many better times to support Palace but if we don’t want to see our fantastic start stall, we need to see our target men return.

“It’s not important to think about goals or no goals”.

There will be goals at the King Power, Leicester score against anybody, I don’t care who they are.

“Nathan Dyer, for example, he can come off the bench and he’s a terrific player”.