Furious Leicester ace Vardy ‘punches door in rage’ after Crystal Palace hammering in Claude Puel’s final game before sacking
JAMIE VARDY reportedly "punched a door in rage" after Leicester were battered 4-1 by Crystal Palace on Saturday.
According to the , the striker furiously lashed out in the home dressing room at the King Power Stadium.
And the report suggests Vardy, 32, left himself bruised but fortunately for Leicester he did not break any bones.
The incident will perhaps not come as a surprise with Foxes supporters having come accustomed to the striker punching himself in the face after missing chances since his arrival at Leicester in 2012.
And it appears his frustration boiled over once again as goals from Michy Batshuayi, two from Wilfried Zaha and a Luka Milivojevic penalty condemned City to their fourth-successive home league defeat.
Opta's stats show that Vardy had just 23 touches and managed one shot in the game, which was off target.
As first exclusively revealed by SunSport yesterday morning, the result proved to be the final straw for Puel as he was sacked.
The news is unlikely to have caused much unrest in the Leicester dressing room with players seemingly still struggling to adapt to Puel's passing style after 16 months in charge.
After the defeat to Manchester United on February 3, Vardy allegedly said "f***ing k***head" towards Puel and he was then dropped to the bench to face Tottenham the following week despite the Frenchman playing down the incident.
Reports in December suggested Puel had "lost nearly everybody" at the training ground and in an interview with Sky Sports, Vardy admitted: "It does get a bit frustrating, but we are transitioning into a different style of play.
Latest Premier League news
"I think we’ve just got to keep working hard on it and eventually it will get us going forward that bit quicker because, when we get into attacking positions, eventually the ball will get picked out for some of my runs."
And the stats do not lie.
In the 2015/16 season when Vardy inspired Leicester to win the Premier League - under Claudio Ranieri's counter-attacking style - the former Fleetwood striker scored 24 goals from 115 shots and had 222 touches in the oppositions' boxes.
Although his shot conversion went up to 28.2 per cent last season, it has dropped down to 17.4 per cent this term.
He has managed just eight goals from 46 shots with 97 touches in the opposition's boxes so far this season.
The old system suited Vardy - and therefore Leicester - better, breaking quickly and getting behind defences rather than trying to unpick defences with intricate passing moves.
With Puel now gone, assistant coaches Mike Stowell and Adam Sadler will prepare the team to face Brighton at the King Power tomorrow night.
But as SunSport revealed, Leicester's first choice to replace Puel is Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers, although they would need to stump up £6million in compensation for the Northern Irishman.