Jamie Vardy: Claudio Ranieri's all-nighters are behind Leicester City's 'theme park ride' season
Striker reveals manager's extraordinary dedication as Foxes look to extend gap over their title rivals this weekend
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Your support makes all the difference.Jamie Vardy has revealed the extraordinary lengths to which Claudio Ranieri goes to keep Leicester City’s title bid alive.
Vardy said Ranieri stays up all night studying rivals and called Leicester's season a “theme park ride”. The England striker believes Ranieri has worked wonders taking the Foxes to the top of the Premier League.
Leicester host Norwich on Saturday with a two-point lead after a heart-breaking late 2-1 defeat to Arsenal in their last game.
Ranieri replaced Nigel Pearson in the summer and Vardy - the league's 19-goal top scorer - said the former Chelsea boss is the best he has worked with and rarely rests.
He said: “I think he examines every single aspect of every opposition we’re playing. He comes into our team meetings where he's been up all night watching 50-60 clips of just one of the opposition's players and he will tell you exactly what he’s done in 49 of them and what he did in the other 11.
“It’s mental how much detail he goes into but it's a help to us and hopefully gives us an advantage.”
When asked to describe Leicester's season in three words Vardy told Betfair: “Theme park ride.”
Ranieri gave the players last week off before they returned on Monday to prepare for the visit of the Canaries. They were given a programme to follow and had heart rate monitors to track their progress, and Ranieri has been pleased with the results.
He said: “I gave the players some programmes and they respected it and worked well. We had their GPS and when they came back the results were good. I trust them because they are very professional players. I gambled with them - we did not achieve nine points because we lost to Arsenal but they played well.”
Ranieri returned to Italy during Leicester's break and watched Real Madrid's 2-0 win over Roma in the Champions League, and admitted he rarely switches off.
“I bring my laptop with me. If I have a spare hour I watch - then spend time with my family - then another hour. I went to watch Roma and Real Madrid - I scouted Ronaldo, not a bad young player,” he joked.
Daniel Amartey is likely to be included against Norwich as he prepares to make his debut following a January move from FC Copenhagen and Jeff Schlupp is back after a hamstring injury, but Danny Simpson is suspended.
Ranieri added: “I can put (Marcin) Wasilewski in again (at right back) I can put Amartey or (Marc) Albrighton maybe. I think Amartey is ready, he played against Man City's under-21s and played 90 minutes.”
PA
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