Jamie Vardy's 200 goals in 500 Leicester games: How he scored them, who he scored against and the five best

New York Times

18-05-2025

No one who saw Jamie Vardy's first goal for Leicester City in a League Cup tie at Torquay United in August 2012 would have imagined that, 13 years later, he would still be putting the ball in the back of the net in a Leicester shirt, scoring his 200th for the club in his 500th and final game, against Ipswich Town on Sunday.
Advertisement
Back then, the striker added the last goal in a 4-0 win and in typical fashion, ran in behind the defence to latch on to an angled Ben Marshall long pass before beating the on-rushing goalkeeper to head into an empty net.
Vardy had forged a reputation for using his electric pace to sprint beyond static defences. It was what caught the attention of then-Leicester manager Nigel Pearson and his assistants, Craig Shakespeare and Steve Walsh, and convinced them to make their move while others hesitated.
At first, it looked as though the gamble would not pay off. He scored just four more times in his first season, but contributed 16 in their Championship title-winning season in 2013-14.
Over the next few years in the Premier League, Vardy would become much more than a striker who could run the channels. He became one who could score all types of goals.
Former head coach Enzo Maresca said in November last year, before they were reunited as his Chelsea side took on Leicester, that Vardy had been the best English striker of his generation.
'England has been quite lucky with strikers, like (Harry) Kane, (Wayne) Rooney and many others, but he has been the best one,' he said.
'He can do many things, like run in behind and finish, but the best thing is his open mind. Last year, he changed the way he was playing by dropping in, linking the play and he still wants to learn. But he still has the one thing that is most difficult to find, which is to score goals.'
Here, The Athletic looks at the stats behind those 200 goals, who they came against, and then pick his best five…
Vardy's goal reel includes the full repertoire during his 13 years with Leicester.
Of his 200, 126 have been scored with his right foot, 49 with his left and 25 with his head. Most of his goals have come inside the penalty area (193, including 34 penalties).
Apart from the Conference League, he has also scored in every competition he has played, including 145 Premier League goals, which puts him 15th on the all-time record goalscorers' list.
When he scored for Leicester against Ipswich Town on May 18, he became the Premier League's ninth-oldest goalscorer at 38 years and 127 days.
He leads the way for the most goals scored from the age of 30, with 111
Vardy has done it against the best sides as well. He has scored 11 goals in 18 games against Arsenal, the club that nearly signed him in 2016 after Leicester won the Premier League.
He has notched 10 against Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur and nine against Manchester City.
The clubs he has been less successful against have been Brentford and Cardiff City, facing them five times without scoring.
In 2016, when Vardy was on a short barren spell in the season after the title win, former England striker Michael Owen described him as lucky and 'not a natural finisher' while working as a television pundit.
'He's the type of centre-forward or finisher that is very much head down and hit it,' he said before Leicester's goalless draw with Copenhagen in the Champions League group stage. 'He goes for power a lot. He's not necessarily a cute, classy finisher.
Advertisement
'He doesn't once lift his head. He almost hits it through goalkeepers. To be a finisher like that, you need a lot of luck — sometimes you'll have it, sometimes you won't.'
Owen may have changed his tune now, but Vardy's manager at Leicester, Ruud van Nistelrooy — who knows a thing or two about scoring goals from his career with Manchester United and Real Madrid — says it doesn't matter as long as he is still scoring goals.
'You can call it natural or not natural, he puts those chances away,' Van Nistelrooy said after the 2-0 win against Southampton this month. 'He's been doing that for Leicester, he has won the league and has won the FA Cup. He may not be the dominant force in many games because of where the club has been over those 13 years, so whether you call it natural or not, it doesn't matter. He's a great goalscorer.'
Van Nistelrooy picked out goal number 199, against Southampton, as a classic example of how technically good a striker Vardy is.
'Look at that goal,' he says. 'He scored a volley on his left foot with a drop kick. The technique was fantastic.
'So was his movement in the build-up, the way he moves away and then goes to the near post to create a yard of space for himself.
'That instinct and the intuition come into place and his technique, how he connects with that volley and how the ball leaves his foot in the top corner.'
Vardy = goals 🐐 pic.twitter.com/M3dHWXWge0
— Leicester City (@LCFC) May 3, 2025
Vardy's time with Leicester City is now at an end, but the striker the fans call the GOAT isn't finished yet and intends to continue to show his finishing prowess at the highest level possible.
If any potential suitors need a short montage of what Vardy can do, here we have selected five of his best goals for Leicester.
Read through and add yours below…
His journey through the football pyramid had reached its summit when Vardy started his first Premier League game against Manchester United and marked the occasion with a typical Vardy goal.
The ground was already buzzing as Leicester had come from 3-1 down to Louis van Gaal's men to be level at 3-3 and were pushing for a first home win of the season. Full-back Ritchie De Laet then broke up a United attack and spotted Vardy's run. He probably could have played the pass blindfolded, so confident would he have been that Vardy had already started his burst.
Vardy was virtually free in the middle — De Laet picked him out perfectly and he raced away, but instead of smashing his finish as he might have a few years previously, Vardy calmly side-footed the ball inside the near post to beat David de Gea.
He scored with a smarter finish at West Bromwich Albion towards the end of the season during a run of four goals in the final eight games to help Leicester secure their Premier League status, but for the iconic moment and the celebration, his first Premier League goal stands out.
Shame it took him six months to score his second, but he certainly made up for that goal drought the following season.
The strike that broke Van Nistelrooy's scoring record was among his most memorable. It was his 11th consecutive Premier League goal and the cameras caught his celebration, which was typical Vardy: 'It's me, it's me, it's all f****** me,' he screamed.
But the goal that equalled the record, at Newcastle United, showed that Vardy is not just about the finish. He can create his own goalscoring opportunities, too.
He had a little help from Leandro Ulloa, one of the unsung heroes of the Premier League title triumph that season, with a neat one-two, but then it was all Vardy as he cut inside Moussa Sissoko and slipped his near-post finish past Rob Elliot.
He made this finish look so easy.
Vardy is the classic fox in the box but when he did find the net from outside the box, they were special strikes — none more so than this finish against Liverpool.
As was usually the case that title-winning season, his tandem threat Riyad Mahrez was the assist-maker with a long ball over the top, but Vardy still had a lot to do. This time, instead of trusting his pace to take him clear of the Liverpool defence, he spotted Simon Mignolet off his line and, with the ball bouncing, hit a dipping first-time shot into the net.
Roy Hodgson, then England manager, was watching on with glee, but Vardy was never fully unleashed at international level. England's loss was Leicester's gain.
Vardy showing Owen how wrong he proved to be. A natural finisher has a sense of where the goal is and where the keeper is, and Vardy proved this at West Brom.
Once again, Mahrez was the provider, with another pass over the top — but this time, the ball was dipping over Vardy's left shoulder. With little disruption to his stride and without looking at the goal, Vardy waited for it to drop and gracefully guided it into the bottom corner with his left foot.
The pandemic denied fans the opportunity to witness one of Vardy's more instinctive and clever finishes.
He had demonstrated in March 2016 that he could deliver the deft backheel flick, scoring his first international goal for England in Germany in a similar fashion.
Four years later, he was reproducing it, and from a more acute angle, as Leicester put five past Manchester City in their own backyard.