Saturday 4 February 2017 19:05, UK
As Leicester prepare to welcome Manchester United on Nissan Super Sunday, we take a look at why Jamie Vardy has struggled this season.
The striker broke the record for scoring in consecutive Premier League games (11) in the same fixture last term when the sides drew 1-1 at the King Power Stadium in November 2015.
Vardy's strike meant he surpassed the tally set by former United forward Ruud van Nistelrooy. The goal - a clinical strike to finish a direct move - summed up Leicester's style last season - a style few could cope with and one that led to them sealing the most unlikely of Premier League title triumphs.
"It's been an incredible rise from non-league football right through to the Premier League but the biggest jump in some ways has been the meteoric rise in the last 12 months," Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville said at the time of Vardy's impressive run.
"However, by about February or March [in 2015], you got to a point where you were looking at Jamie Vardy and you were seeing a big improvement happening.
"Leicester were improving as well and there was a moment in April at West Brom [Vardy scored a last-minute winner] that caught everybody's eye and certainly caught my eye. For someone who was playing on the left, as he was in a few games around that time, the speed, the strength and the raw ability was there."
But 14 months later, and it is a different story for Vardy. He scored 10 further Premier League goals in the 2015/16 season but has just five this term, with three of those coming in one game against Manchester City.
The start of the season looked promising as he netted twice in the opening four games, but he then went 10 games without scoring and he has not found the back of the net since his hat-trick against City at the start of December.
Vardy's form again reflects the form of Leicester, who have won just five Premier League games this season - losing the last three without scoring - and sit two points from the drop zone.
Soccer Saturday pundit Matt Le Tissier suggests opposition teams have found a way to nullify Leicester and Vardy.
"I think Jamie Vardy's season kind of mirrors Leicester's, in that last season's was a complete freak and I think he's kind of where you'd expect him to be in goals, just like Leicester are in the league table," he told Sky Sports.
"You never really expected him to be a goal-every-other-game striker and he's suffering because Leicester aren't doing what they did last season. It's a more general team problem rather than a Jamie Vardy problem.
"If you're a centre-forward who isn't going to create your own goals then if the team is struggling then you're going to suffer.
"His main attribute is pace and he needs space in behind people and teams have sussed out Leicester and know that if they sit deep enough then they're not much of a threat.
"I think they have to go back to what they were doing last season in terms of letting teams come on to them, but it's not always that easy when a team are intent on dropping off and not giving them that space."
But could it all have been so different? It was reported that Arsenal made a £22m offer for Vardy at the start of June, but the striker turned down the move.
He subsequently signed a four-year deal at the King Power Stadium and will need to find his form once again to help pull Leicester clear of a relegation scrap.
Does Vardy regret that decision? "Possibly," says Le Tissier. "I think looking at the season now, he'd prefer to be fighting for Champions League places than fighting relegation.
"However, there's no guarantees in football and the competition at Arsenal is such that he probably wouldn't be playing as much, so he could be sat on the bench there wondering what could have been if he'd stayed at Leicester."
