Vardy's Concentration

- Jamie Vardy speaks to the media ahead of Leicester City's Premier League match against Cardiff City 
- The Foxes face the Bluebirds at Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday (3pm GMT kick-off)
- Like everybody the Football Club, Vardy says the past week has left him and his team-mates 'hurting' following the tragic events of last Saturday evening
- The 31-year-old striker says it is important that City's players concentrate on football this weekend

Last weekend, the Club’s Chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, was one of five people who tragically lost their lives following a fixture with West Ham United at King Power Stadium.

After Claude Puel’s squad made a 'unanimous' decision to play this Saturday’s Premier League fixture in the Welsh capital, Vardy has paid a personal tribute to a man who impacted on Leicester life so profoundly.

With the support of over 3,000 members of the Blue Army in Cardiff, the Foxes will return to action for the first time since the events of last weekend.

Speaking on Friday morning, Vardy, who has been with the Club since 2012, said: “We’re all hurting, but we know that he’d want us out there, to be as a team and we want to do him proud.

“It’s been one of the hardest weeks that myself and the lads have had to go through.

“He wasn’t just a Chairman, he always went out of his way to get to know you on personal levels as well, with your families. He took us in as his extended family and that’s the exact same as what we did.

“He was the main one behind it (the Club's success), he was like the father figure of the group, wanting to be like that not just with the players, but with the fans as well, to all be as one.

“He was a fun, loving guy, always with a smile on his face. That was him from day one, when I first met him, he never changed one bit.”

City’s players have been in training at Belvoir Drive since Tuesday morning and departed for Cardiff on Friday afternoon.

Coming together for daily training sessions and looking ahead to another top flight matchday has been a source of solace for the Foxes players, Vardy says.

He added: “We all wanted to get out on the pitch, [Claude Puel] did give us the option to do other things, whatever we felt was best, and everyone came to the unanimous decision we’d get out there and make sure that we were preparing for an important game for us all personally and obviously for the Club.

“The training sessions themselves have been good and, by playing football, it’s been able to take our mind off it slightly, just for an hour or so, and we’ve managed to concentrate on football.

“When you think about it and knowing what Vichai would’ve wanted, it was an easier decision to make [to play against Cardiff].

“It wasn’t just a couple of players saying we need to play, it was an unanimous decision.

“Every single player and staff member came out and said: ‘we need to play this game, we want to play this game’. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.”