Jamie Vardy shrugs off Michael Owen criticism

Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy has shrugged off claims from former England international Michael Owen that he is not a natural finisher.

Owen claimed last month that Vardy relied on fortune rather than finesse to score the majority of his goals, despite the 29-year-old having netted 24 times to help Leicester to the Premier League title last season.

Vardy ended a 16-match goal drought for the club with a hat-trick in the 4-2 victory over Manchester City on Saturday, and the FWA Player of the Year insists that neither Owen's criticism nor his dry patch in front of goal affected him.

"I don't listen to that. He can say what he wants. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I'm not going to read anything to it and that's up to them what they say. I'll just get on with it, work on the training field and hopefully take it into the matches," he told reporters

"No it never bothered me, not at all. But at the end of the day the team comes first. Although we've not been getting the results and a few of the performances have been below par, deep down we knew we were still the team we were last year.

"On Saturday's performance we've definitely got that back and we'll look forward to Tuesday now at Bournemouth. I don't think we can start talking about streaks and stuff like that just yet, but we'll have to wait and see. Obviously with what happened last year, a lot of expectations go up. Against City we showed exactly what we're about and what we can do."

Vardy has scored five goals in 15 league appearances this season in comparison to 14 at the same stage last term - including a Premier League-record run of scoring in 11 consecutive games.