Will he? Won’t he?

The Jamie Vardy Saga©® drags on. That’s right, a move none of us knew a thing about on Friday has now gone all the way until Tuesday without satisfactory resolution. It’s hardly even scratching the surface of the stuff we’ve gone through before. Waiting for players, waiting for agents, waiting for Arsenal, waiting for Godot and anyone else that might need to get involved.

I don’t know where this 11.30 deadline yesterday came from exactly. Whether it was one Arsenal put in place or timed because of England’s departure to the European Championships I’m not sure, but whatever the truth of it, Vardy didn’t let Arsenal know his decision and now Arsenal ‘fear’ that he will stay at Leicester.

Here’s the state of play as I understand it. Leicester have made Vardy a 4 year contract offer which gives him a big bump in wages. Not as much as he’d be paid at Arsenal, but still a large increase. The offer from Arsenal is not for 4 years, slightly less than that, and it seems as if this is the issue.

So, if he wants to stay at Leicester because of an issue of contract duration, what can we do about that? Given the financial offer from Arsenal is better than that of Leicester’s, there’s not likely to be any financial impact, so if that contract length is a genuine sticking point maybe we will have reached an impasse.

However, I think the offer he has at 29 years of age from Arsenal is very reasonable. The money is better, there’s all the stuff we’ve spoken about regarding the size/prestige of a club like Arsenal, and I find it hard to believe that this is a deal that would break down over something like this. Arsenal want Vardy, Vardy wants Arsenal, I’m still confident this will go through.

I suppose it’s worth pointing out that we are dealing with the same agents that represent Theo Walcott and to their credit they’ve been very good at getting the maximum for their client down the years. My suspicion is that this is them trying to squeeze every last bit out of this deal for a player who doesn’t have time on his side. This is his last chance to make a big move, and I reckon that’s all that’s going on here. Both sides are playing the game, and it’ll all be grand once they don’t push too far because we have been known to say ‘This is my ball, I’m going home’.

Meanwhile, both the Mirror and the Telegraph run with stories this morning about how Arsenal have given assurances to Theo Walcott over his future. Linked once again with a move to West Ham yesterday, since denied by one of the owner’s sons on Twitter (what a world we live in!), the 27 year old is apparently still part of Arsene Wenger’s plans for next season.

I did enjoy this bit in the Telegraph report: