Your Weekly Vardy: Ranieri says Jamie hasn’t decided

Because we can’t let more than, say, three days go by without Jamie Vardy news, even when there is no concrete Jamie Vardy news, today we got some comments from Claudio Ranieri about the Vardy situation.

At first blush, they’re blindingly obvious comments:

“Arsenal have said they will pay the full release clause, but he hasn’t accepted yet. He gets the last word.”

So, what he’s saying is that Vardy gets to make up his own mind, as opposed I guess to someone holding a gun to his head and saying SIGN FOR LEICESTER or something? Anyway, there’s a sort of...I don’t know if “deeper” meaning is accurate, since this is a sports story so light it makes meringue look like molasses, but it does read as if Arsenal will not be pulling their offer off the table, and will in fact wait for the player to make a decision, rather than making it for him.

Which is fine - Arsenal aren’t the moral guardians of The Way The Game Should Be Run, and they were never going to “teach Vardy a lesson” by withdrawing their offer after it was clear that he wasn't going to decide his future on anyone’s timetable but his own. It’s not the club’s job to force a player's hand, and it’s also not their job to convince a player with anything but the best contract offer they are willing to provide.

That has been done; the ball, as it has been, is firmly in the player’s court now. Players, as always, have all the power in these situations - that's the way the business of soccer works now, for better or worse, so now we wait. Or, I guess, keep waiting.