While Leicester City are fighting for their life in the Premier League, a former transfer flop is excelling.
Leicester City travel to West Ham United for a midweek meeting on Thursday evening and need to win.
The Foxes are already five points adrift of safety and another defeat this week will be catastrophic to their survival chances.
However, West Ham are predicted to beat Leicester by Opta’s supercomputer, which is not surprising given that the Foxes are on a run of 10 defeats in 11 when playing in the Premier League.
Jamie Vardy continues to work hard for his team in a bid to avoid the drop but his goals have not been enough so far to keep them out of the bottom three.
But the Midlands outfit may have fared better had they been able to get more out of one of their biggest transfer flops in recent years.
Leicester City flop set for record season as he outscores Jamie Vardy
Vardy has scored seven goals in 24 Premier League games this term and netted eight in all competitions.
While it’s a decent return for a side battling relegation, a former flop is now outscoring him by some distance for his new club.
Leicester signed Ayoze Perez for £30m back in July 2019, according to BBC Sport.
The Spaniard scored just 15 goals in 114 matches across all competitions for the Foxes following his move from Newcastle United.
However, he has now linked up with Spanish outfit Villarreal and is in the midst of what could potentially be his best-ever season.
Heading into March, the 31-year-old has 14 goals and two assists from 20 appearances across 2024/25.
That’s nearly double the amount of goals scored by Vardy. It is also just three less than Perez’s most prolific season as a player when he scored 16 in 35 back in 2013/14 when plying his trade in La Liga 2 for CD Tenerife.
Why Ayoze Perez left Leicester City
With such a hefty price tag, a lot more was expected of the former Newcastle man when he arrived at the King Power.
For whatever reason things just did not work out and when speaking last year, as per Al Final De La Palmera, the forward opened up on his decision to leave.
He said: “It was a delicate moment in my career, I was not counting on many minutes at Leicester and it gave me a lot of confidence.
“We all know what a great coach Manuel [Pellegrini] is and in that sense, it made it easier for me to make my decision to come to Betis.
“Psychologically I was very clear that it was time and hence my decision to return to Spain.”