The streak survives for another week and into territory never before travelled. Jamie Vardy’s list of consecutive games with a goal has now reached its eleventh entry, surpassing Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s ten games for Manchester United back in 2003. The Leicester City striker added to his streak and to his golden boot-leading tally with a first half strike against RVN’s old team, as the Foxes earned a 1-1 result to stay ahead of United on the table.

Right, that’s what happened. But more importantly… huh!?

How has a dude who was playing non-league for Fleetwood Town a few years back become the top marksman in the world’s most competitive league? How has a team that needed a miracle to avoid relegation last season, that changed their manager controversially before this one, found themselves with one of the most irrepressible attacks in England? It makes no goddamn sense.

Leicester has scored in every game this season. They’ve conceded in all but two. The only other team to have scored in every PL game? There isn’t one. In fact, there isn’t another team in the entire football league that’s done that this season. Part of it is a balance thing: their 29 goals have come at the expense of 21 at the other end. They’re unafraid to send players forward and that means overloads at either end. Vardy’s goal on the weekend was set up by Christian Fuchs, a left back who found himself at right back and didn’t think twice of it. Now, had his pass been intercepted, then he has a major problem unless somebody else can quickly fill in and cover for him. As it happens, they didn’t need to. It’s that kind of creative encouragement that is so endearing about this team while many others expected to struggle equally are shifting pieces and trying to figure out a way to stop conceding, LCFC are playing without that fear at all.

We’ll get to Jamie Vardy in a sec but first let’s analyse his goal.

It begins from a Daley Blind corner, which was also how United’s goal came before the break and on the basis of this game is gonna be one of their best weapons going forward. They may as well become a set piece team, ya know? Not much else is working at the moment.

Anyway, cross whipped in and Kasper Schmeichel comes and claims it. He surveys the ground before him, which is fairly open and drops it to Fuchs as the fullback cuts into open space.

Here’s where United got stretched. This is the single most organised backline in the PL but this wasn’t their backline that was doing the defending. Playing with a central trio, Chris Smalling was the main target from the corner kick (ending up in the goal netting), Blind had taken the thing and Paddy McNair, in his first start of the season, he could have closed down Fuchs and ended the break if he’d stayed on him – he was right there, that’s him busting back next to the Swiss man – but he sorta understandably had eyes only for getting back to his RCB slot. Which meant that Fuchs had half a field of spare, green grass to run into. United didn’t have any wingers in the formation and left wingback Ashley Young was covering the middle.

Michael Carrick eventually closed him down but not before Vardy had begun the run behind him, starting on Young and picking up the ball behind Matteo Darmian, who absolutely should have stepped across and intercepted this. Not sure what he was thinking but maybe he didn’t realise where Vardy was. The rest was what any in-form, top-flight forward is gonna do nine times out of ten.

The last man to score in 11 straight games: Stan Mortenson for Blackpool in 1951.

Maybe the success of Jamie Vardy is a good example of the rewards of zigging when everyone else is zagging. Like, most teams these days are looking to find strikers that will hold the ball up, that will link up well with teammates and show some skill on the ball. They also like defences that can play the ball out and fullbacks that’ll get all the way up on attack. That just happens to leave them vulnerable to exactly the kind of player that Vardy is, one with immense speed, a willingness to get wide and cut back inside, a constant threat in behind the backline and a very sharp finishing touch.

Lots of players have many of those traits but few have all of them. Anthony Martial may be one but he isn’t playing with that speed – in fact Louis van Gaal expressed his frustration after the game that his attackers (Martial and Rooney) weren’t running in behind the defence. That’s exactly what Vardy does best and he has a lovely ability to finish that is making him so successful.

When you look at his history, though, he’s never been a prolific scorer. He scored 31 in 36 in the Conference Leagues but in the Championship he only bagged 20 in 63 games. Last year he scored five goals in all comps, and at one stage went 21 without a goal. The player he was last season was raw but enthusiastic. Suddenly he’s also one of the best finishers going around, and you can put that all down to confidence. At its innermost core, finishing is all about rhythm. See the space, control the ball, know where the goal is and place it there. One or two motions, that’s how the great ones do it. Lots of that comes from putting in the hours and Vardy has certainly benefitted from his first 12 months in the highest division, but there’s also an instinctive side to it. The more instinctive the better, which is why strikers suffer such peaks and valleys in form. Once you start worrying about it you only make it worse.

At some stage this streak will end and eventually Vardy’s gonna suffer against the reputation he’s built himself. Can he repeat this for England, for example? Or if he moves to a bigger team? For that reason I think plenty of sides will be wary of making a move for him until he consolidates what he’s doing. Remember Harry Kane at the start of the season? And Kane is a much better-rounded player than Vardy is, a less dynamic runner but a smarter one, a more natural finisher, he has a stronger touch and a much better eye for a pass.

Vardy’s a simple player who plays to his whirlwind strengths and for that he’s in the perfect situation on the perfect team – which has kinda come to be by accident. Dave Nugent was their main man last season, before they bought Leonardo Ulloa (who had a fantastic impact initially). Add in Chris Wood – wow, it feels like years since he was on this team! – and the January import of Andrej Kramaric and Vardy was third choice at best. When they sold Nugent, they went and bought Shinji Okazaki. But those guys were all rotated around before Vardy eventually made himself un-droppable, all down to the fact that he kept scoring. Which came about because he fitted in well with the team’s counter-attacking nature and Riyad Mahrez’s incisiveness.

Curiously, every one of Leicester’s Premier League goals has come from inside the penalty area, while more than half of the ones they’ve conceded have been scored from outside the box. It’s not that they don’t shoot from outside the box, it’s just that they don’t score. Instead they’re a team that likes to run at defenders, Mahrez especially, with only Arsenal and Aston Villa averaging more successful dribbles per game (and Villa’s unsuccessful rate is atrocious – they just never pass or something?). That’s all possible because of the pace that Leicester attack at, which is why they’re able to get the ball into the box, commit defenders, stretch backlines and create space to shoot (as well as win penalties, from which they’ve scored five times, more than any other team). It’s exactly what Manchester United set up to discourage with their back three but the Foxes, those cunning Foxes, found a way through.

For Leicester City now, still sitting second on the table more than a third of the way into the season, all Claudio Ranieri cares about is avoiding relegation. What a humble man. What a… conservative man too. There are two thoughts here, one is that having to balance a European campaign next season with the expected loss of players (if not Vardy then surely Mahrez is getting poached by someone) and the natural regression to the mean that’ll probably happen might be crippling for a club that maybe isn’t scraping the barrel but they’ve hardly got City or Chelsea coffers. The other thought is that this might be their only chance in decades to do something this special and they have to go for it no matter the consequences. Say they play Champions League but get relegated next season. The fans will always have the memory of this season to live on and that’ll go a long way. In some ways, they’re doing it for all the smaller clubs, all the ones that wish they could run with the big dogs if only for a season. These kinds of things aren’t supposed to happen anymore in the modern game. Of course, even after this result they’ll probably fall a long way back with a December fixture list that goes:

• Swansea (A)
• Chelsea (H)
• Everton (A)
• Liverpool (A)
• Man City (H)

Maybe we shouldn’t get carried away quite yet, but it’s pretty hard not to get swept up in the wave.

The Good

Chelsea’s Solidity – Something about the way they played Spurs was reminiscent of the old Chelsea. They were compact and disciplined (much more disciplined than Spurs, actually, who were impatient to win the ball back and that ended with several yellow cards). That’s three clean sheets in a row in all comps now, maybe they really can turn this around? One pleasing aspect was Eden Hazard in a striking/false nine role. It wasn’t really a false nine because he was still trying to run in behind the defence now and then, but he also came back looking for the ball. His energy and enthusiasm was back (so were the borderline tears any time he was fouled), in stark contrast to the season that Diego Costa has had. Costa sat on the bench as an unused sub and the team looked a lot better. Also: No John Terry. Hmm.

Bournemouth’s Belief – After coming back from 2-0 down to tie things up late on, the commentators were all about the massive psychological boost this might have for the Cherries to get some reward for all that fight (because the effort’s been there from the start). But then they conceded in the 95th minute, Ross Barkley being Ross Barkley and making things happen. Whoops. Hey but there was just enough time to get down the other end to level up at 3-3 and wow, what a finish! The double comeback is even more of a lift. And Adam Smith’s goal to spark the comeback was magical.

Alan Pardew – Fair to say Pards won this battle. Apologies to the still-petrified Newcastle faithful. To call you faithful is as honest as it gets because that’s about all that’s left right now.

The Bad

Aston Villa – There’s not much new to add here. There are some really good players on this team but overall they’re just awful. Only three other teams in history (Swindon Town, Sunderland and QPR) have managed just five points from their first 14 games. There’s a loooong way back already.

Stoke Without Ryan Shawcross – Their defensive leader returns and they reel off a bunch of great performances. He gets sent off on the weekend and they subsequently lose 2-0 to Sunderland. Sure the second yellow was harsh but he was lucky not to march for the first one, tbh.

Man Utd’s Goals – Lucky Louis is always saying things like, well… like this:

“We didn’t finish the chances – but there shall be a time when we shall be finishing the chances. It’s a matter of time or luck, or something like that.” - LVG

Which begs the question: If you keep making just enough chances to win, but continually fail to take enough to win… wouldn’t it be better to make more chances? The shot totals are misleading because many of the best chances don’t include a shot at all, a keeper diving at a striker’s feet, an intercepted cross or the pass never made, but there clearly needs to be more going on. This week’s theory: The movement up front is nowhere near fast enough off the ball. They’re too afraid to find themselves out of position.

The Ugly

Arsenal Travel Plans – They chartered a plane for a 14 minute flight to Norwich. Not even enough time to get in an episode of The Simpsons. (Then they came back with a 1-1 draw).

Everton Fans – Thinking they’d won in the 95th minute, a few of them stormed the pitch in celebration. Now, that’s dumb under any circumstances (not to mention illegal) but for your team to then go and concede a 98th minute equaliser, the game dragged out that long because of your own trespassing, well… that’s a bit embarrassing.

Player Petulance – That’s our old buddy Diego Costa once again.