Jamie Vardy's Next Chapter at 39: From Leicester to Burnley

Jamie Vardy’s career has never followed the script. It was never going to start now.

In the summer of 2026, the Premier League title winner found himself without a club, cut loose after Cremonese slid out of Serie A. One season in Italy, one relegation, and the “Italian job” was over almost as quickly as it began. No farewell tour, no grand finale. Just a free agent at 39, waiting for the next twist.

Plenty of people tried to write that chapter for him.

Leicester return shelved, Hollywood move dodged

The romantic option was obvious. Leicester City. The club he had fired to the most improbable of Premier League titles and then watched tumble through back-to-back relegations into League One. A homecoming, a rescue mission, Vardy striding back into the King Power to drag the Foxes off their knees.

It never happened.

Emotion stayed parked. Vardy chose patience instead of sentiment, willing to sit and wait for the right offer rather than the most nostalgic one. Leicester’s rebuild would have to continue without its most famous modern talisman.

Then came the Hollywood angle. Wrexham. “Welcome to Wrexham.” Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. A club reborn in front of the cameras, a global audience already primed for another underdog story. On paper, Vardy looked made for it: a working-class hero dropped straight into a streaming-era fairytale.

There was noise, and not just from the outside. His former Leicester team-mate Danny Simpson, speaking to GOAL, admitted there was at least some substance to the talk.

“I think there was something there. There were a few things that were there. I did speak to him,” Simpson said, lifting the lid on what might have been.

But the Racecourse Ground never became Vardy’s stage. The script flipped again.

Burnley’s gamble on a 39-year-old who refuses to slow down

It was Burnley who moved decisively. Backed in part by NFL great JJ Watt among their investors, the Clarets put a 12‑month contract on the table and asked Vardy to bring his edge, his relentlessness, his goals, to the Championship.

No Hollywood cameras. No sentimental Leicester reunion. Just a hard, unforgiving division and a club in need of a spark.

Simpson, though, had another destination in mind entirely.

“You know what I wanted? I know it's happened now but I would have liked to have seen him go to Everton,” he admitted. “You need a striker, 20 minutes left in a game, coming on for [Thierno] Barry. Anyway, that didn't happen. That's just what I was thinking.”

It’s a striking image: Vardy, blue shirt on his back again, thrown on at Goodison Park to chase lost causes and lost points. But that, too, stayed in the realm of imagination.

What remains, Simpson insists, is a player who can still hurt defences.

“He's still fit, he's still sharp, he's still going to get you goals. There's nothing on him, his weight and stuff. I hope he starts getting more games and getting goals because that's Jamie Vardy. He's always got another story, another chapter.”

Joining football’s 40-plus elite

That chapter will now run through Turf Moor and beyond a milestone that would have finished off most strikers long ago. On January 11, Vardy turns 40. By then, he will stand in rare company.

• Cristiano Ronaldo.
• Luka Modric.
• Gianluigi Buffon.
• Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The roll call of elite players who have stayed relevant and competitive beyond that age is short, and heavily decorated. Vardy, the former non-league forward who climbed from factory shifts to Premier League glory, is about to step into that club.

The question is how long he can keep writing at this level.

Simpson believes the answer lies less in Vardy’s body and more in how that body is used.

“I think he has got more in him,” he said. “I think it'll come down to how he's managed with Tuesday and Saturday. I remember when he did that at Leicester, when he got them promoted. He scored 20-plus goals.”

Back then, Vardy’s game was built on relentless sprints, constant pressing, and a willingness to run channels until defenders cracked. The engine is older now, but the professionalism has only hardened.

“He looks after himself but he needs managing right because it's tough to do that, especially in the Championship. It's up to how the manager manages him. As long as he's still hungry, which he is, he could do another year after.”

One of the last title heroes still standing

Around him, the memories of Leicester’s title win have drifted into nostalgia. The squad has scattered, careers have wound down, boots have been hung up.

“He's also looking at the future and doing his own little bits, which is only right to do by the way,” Simpson added, nodding to Vardy’s growing interest in YouTube and Bundesliga match streaming. “I hope he keeps going because there's only a few of us left from that [Leicester title-winning] team that are still playing.”

For now, the future can wait. The present is demanding enough.

Vardy has so far made just one appearance for Burnley, a 25‑minute cameo off the bench. It came in the middle of a bleak start to the season that has left the Clarets winless and marooned at the bottom of the Championship table. This is not the platform he joined; it is a rescue job in the making.

Wrexham, the club he might have joined, are not exactly flying either. Seven points from seven games have dulled some of the early-season optimism and left Reynolds and McElhenney facing a reality that doesn’t always fit neatly into a documentary script.

Both clubs, in different ways, are searching for a jolt, a moment, a personality to drag them into better form once the international break passes and the grind resumes.

Burnley are betting that, even at 39, Jamie Vardy can still be that man. The legs are older. The leagues have changed. The stage is different.

But if his career has proved anything, it’s this: he rarely turns up just to make up the numbers.