Ranieri forced to issue hands off warning to Real Madrid for Jamie Vardy

When we brought you the completely ridiculous reports of Real Madrid's interest in Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, little did we know we'd still be talking about this a day later.

Yet, here we are, with poor old Claudio Ranieri being asked whether he would consider selling the Premier League's leading scorer should the Spanish giants come calling for a late-blooming former non-league forward in the midst of an admittedly inspired purple patch. "No, he will stay with us. Nobody goes in January. Not Riyad [Mahrez], not him, not [Jeffrey] Schlupp, nobody," Ranieri said at a press conference ahead of Leicester's Capital One Cup tie against Hull City tomorrow. "We don't sell him, he's very happy here and it's too early to speak about it. I hope he can continue to grow again. "If he can continue this way it would be fantastic. We are waiting for the bigger clubs, but this is only speculation." Somebody is bound to come calling for Vardy, even when he falls back to earth from his goal-a-game heights - just don't expect him to need to brush up on his Spanish.