Leicester City legend Jamie Vardy has heaped praise on Youri Tielemans and backed his ‘unbelievable’ former team-mate to reach another level altogether at Manchester United.
United ramped up their interest in Tielemans in their search for midfield reinforcements last month, before triggering a £35million release clause in the Belgian’s contract at Aston Villa.
Tielemans pen to paper on a five-year deal at Old Trafford, tying him to the club until 2031, and will be expected to add an extra dimension to Michael Carrick’s engine room along with fellow signing Andrey Santos.
After joining up with his new team-mates, Tielemans revealed he had held discussions with United on two previous occasions before his move to the Theatre of Dreams this summer.
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But Villa managed to cling on to Tielemans ahead of last season and the 29-year-old played an instrumental role as Unai Emery’s men won the Europa League while also securing Champions League football with a fourth-placed finish.
Before that, Tielemans ensured he went down in Leicester folklore by scoring the winning goal in the side’s stunning FA Cup final victory over Chelsea at Wembley.
Vardy was also a part of Leicester’s success that day and after four-and-a-half years together at the King Power Stadium, it’s clear Tielemans left a sizeable impression on the iconic striker.
‘I just think he’ll start kicking on again if I’m honest,’ Vardy said on his Jamie Vardy’s Having A Party podcast when discussing Tielemans’ summer switch to United.
‘I played against him with Belgium, he was unbelievable and you were like, “Wow, who is this?”, because he was only young at the time.
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‘It then came through that we [Leicester] had signed him on loan at first and I remember going around all the lads and saying, “We’ve signed a player here!”, and I mean a really good player.
‘He came in and straight away you could tell… the dedication, 100 per cent every day.
‘He would then get in the dressing room and he was so down to earth, so normal.
‘He was a real breath of fresh air for us at that time.’
