Jamie Vardy has opened up on why he turned down Arsenal in the 2016 summer transfer window.
Speaking exclusively on The Rest Is Football, Vardy reflected on the moment Arsene Wenger’s side triggered the release clause in his Leicester City contract, following the Foxes’ extraordinary Premier League title triumph.
Arsenal were ready to pay £22 million for Vardy, who was 29 at the time, but he turned them down.
How many goals do you think Jamie Vardy would have scored if he joined Arsenal in 2016?
Gary Lineker, conducting the interview, praised the striker for his loyalty to Leicester before getting to the point.
“Turning down Arsenal is quite a big deal,” Lineker said, to which Vardy agreed, before explaining that the timing just hadn’t felt right.
“It was like a surreal situation,” Vardy said. “I’ve never been involved in that type of thing. Like on paper, they were a way bigger club.
“I was away that summer with England. And when you’re away with it, you have so much time on your hands. It is frightening.
“That just gave me the space to just think about everything. And I just said, no, it’s not happening. It ain’t.”
Fair enough, really.
Would Arsenal have won the Premier League if Vardy signed?
To Vardy’s credit, it was the kind of show of loyalty you don’t see much in football anymore.
Arsenal had triggered his release clause, and were fully prepared to bring him to the Emirates, where he would’ve obviously added goals to the side.
Wenger himself later admitted he suspected Vardy would stay, perhaps reading something in those early conversations that suggested his heart wasn’t really in it.
Vardy went on to sign a new four-year deal at Leicester and continued to be one of the Premier League’s best strikers for years to come, adding an FA Cup to his list of honours in 2021.
Whether Arsenal would have won another Premier League title under Wenger is one of football’s great what-ifs.
A clinical, relentless penalty-box striker in his absolute prime, at a club that had all the creative players to supply him — Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, Aaron Ramsey, to name a few.
You can see it. You can see it quite easily, actually, and that’s the annoying part.
But Vardy himself has no regrets.
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