Vardy: Rejecting Arsenal was easy

Jamie Vardy has revealed that his 'heart and heart' told him to stay with Leicester City this summer.

The England striker was the subject of a bid from Arsenal which activated the release clause in his contract but after much speculation he decided to stay with the English champions.

The saga was played out while Vardy took part in England's disastrous Euro 2016 campaign which saw them eliminated in the last 16 match to minnows Iceland.

Vardy admits the defeat was a huge blow - and that he bumped into Gunners' manager Arsene Wenger a number of times in France.

"It [losing to Iceland] was heartbreaking," he said.

"Every single one of us is a football fan as well. If we weren't playing we'd have been watching and it was heartbreaking. But we do have to move on and this is a new chapter with a new boss.

"We have to make sure we get the win on Sunday and then take it into the rest of the qualifying campaign and reach the World Cup.

"I was in a hotel room for many hours of every day with nothing to do.

"You had a lot of time on your hands. I am not going to beat around the bush - every time I thought about it, and every aspect of it I thought about, both my head and my heart were saying to stay, which is why I made my decision to stay.

"Deep down if you don't think it is right move for you, you don't do it. It is as simple as that. You get that much time to think about every single thing down to the tea lady.

"You think about what might happen, what might not, where you could be, where not. Every time I thought about every little thing, both head and heart were saying, 'You need to stay'.

"In my professional life it was the hardest decision. It was hard but, like I said, when it came to my head and my heart it was an easy decision.

"To be fair I spoke to him [Wenger} a couple of times in the hotels we were in while we were in France. It was just, 'Hi, are you all right?', and walk off to the match.

"It was basically every hotel. I think he was doing French TV for the Euros. It wasn't awkward, it was just a simple, 'Hello, are you okay?'.That kind of thing.

"It was a nice compliment they wanted to buy me. But my head and heart were saying stay."

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