Jamie Vardy and Danny Drinkwater confident they can bring Leicester City form to England

‘A lot of hard work has gone into getting us here’

Jamie Vardy, (left) and Danny Drinkwater face the media at an England press conference at St George’s Park this week (AFP/Getty)

Danny Drinkwater was in Barnsley when he was told that his football dream was over. Four years on, that dream could come true in the most unexpected fashion in Berlin.

It was a bleak January morning in south Yorkshire which was interrupted by a phone call from Manchester United telling the midfielder that, after signing on at Old Trafford as a nine-year-old, he would not be going back. Leicester City had made an offer, he was being sold and it was time to end his loan spell at Oakwell and head south down the M1.

“My lowest point in football? Probably leaving United,” Drinkwater admits. “I supported them, it was my childhood club and all that.

“I was on loan at Barnsley, United accepted an offer and that was it really. I just had to concentrate on my new club. It was a low, but look what has come of it.”

Drinkwater is expected to be rewarded with his first senior England cap against Germany on Saturday, or in Tuesday’s Wembley friendly against the Netherlands, after playing a pivotal role in Leicester’s remarkable rise to the top of the Premier League this season – so leaving United has clearly not turned out too badly for the 26-year-old.

Speaking to the media at St George’s Park this week, alongside his Leicester team-mate Jamie Vardy, Drinkwater’s recollection of why he always feared the end of the road at United brings a wry laugh and shake of the head from the forward.

“People like Paul Scholes were blocking my path, so what are you going to do with that?” Drinkwater says, prompting Vardy’s amusement. “You just look at him as an idol. I have watched him since I was a little kid, so I couldn’t have had much of a better teacher.

“But I had played for the reserves for quite a few years and I wanted to take that next step which was a loan move. I spent two years out of United in total and I didn’t really want to go back into the reserves and dip in and out of the first team. I wanted to play.

“When I left, in the back of my mind I thought it [a top-level career] was probably half-gone, but I have worked hard. I have got into a team at Leicester where everything ticks, everything works well. It is a good club and it was always going to move forward. You can always have self-belief but leaving a club like United was huge. Still, look where we are now.

“A lot of hard work has gone into getting where I am now and the whole team is doing well and I guess when the whole team is doing well and you are at the top, people take note of what you are doing. I haven’t changed as a player,” he insists. “I am not doing anything massively different. I just think it is being watched a lot more. I don’t know the answer really. It is just all coming together at the right time.”

Drinkwater’s ability to provide a defensive shield at Leicester, at the same time as providing a launch-pad for attacking forays with his range of passing, secured his call-up for this squad ahead of West Ham United’s Mark Noble.

He has also added goals to his game this campaign, scoring twice since the turn of the year, but Vardy admits that it is Drinkwater’s control of the game from midfield which has made a crucial difference for Leicester.

“He is the puppet-master,” Vardy says, to giggles from his team-mate. “He is the one who holds all the strings and makes sure he pulls everyone into the right places. He feeds the ball where it needs to go and he has been brilliant.

“I think if you look at the whole squad, the whole squad is brilliant as well. We know it is going to take a lot of hard work, but that is what we will do to go places.”

But can Drinkwater step up from Premier League revelation to a player capable of making a difference on the international stage? “I don’t think it is really pressure [on Danny],” Vardy claims. “You are there for a reason and the boss tells you exactly why he has picked you. He doesn’t want you to change anything, he just wants you to do exactly what you have been doing week in, week out for your club.

“So if I had any advice for Danny, it would just be do exactly the same as what he has been doing.”

Leicester’s rise this season, which sees them currently sit five points clear of Tottenham Hotspur at the top of the table with just 21 points left to play for, has thrust the likes of Drinkwater and Vardy into a spotlight usually claimed by those who perform for the Premier League’s so-called superpowers. But despite the increased scrutiny and focus on Leicester’s credentials as the season draws to a conclusion, there is little sense of Claudio Ranieri’s squad being affected by the pressure of leading the race.

Vardy’s nonchalant approach to life away from the 90 minutes on the pitch perhaps explains why Leicester so far appear immune to the jitters of the run-in. “I have had it before when I was asked if I watched the games of our rivals,” Vardy says. “But I am usually on my PlayStation.

“If I had watched the game I would have been streaming it illegally so I don’t even know why they are asking me! But you don’t really get time to stop and think. We have a job to do and it is football until the season is finished. That is all we concentrate on, going game by game.

“Listen, we are just taking each game as it comes. It is as simple as that. The only pressure we had was to make sure we stayed up, so now we are enjoying ourselves.”

Vardy, the one-time non-league player now on the brink of becoming a Premier League title winner and star of Euro 2016, has even had to deal with the prospect of being the subject of a Hollywood movie following an impromptu meeting with scriptwriter Adrian Butchart last month.

“I met him and I asked him if he was mad to be honest with you,” Vardy says. “It was in the papers and I didn’t know if it was true, but it turned out it was. That is up to them. If they want to do it [the film], there is nothing I can do.”

Vardy’s tale has been well told, but the Drinkwater story is similarly unlikely, having climbed back to the top following his departure from United.

For those who believe modern-day footballers care only about cars and money, the reaction to his selection for the England squad is the perfect antidote. “When it was announced that I was in the squad, we were training and there was five minutes of madness really,” Drinkwater adds. “Training kind of half stopped and there were high-fives everywhere.

“I think every player would love to play for their country and I am more than happy. It is a total honour and I am looking forward to it.”