LEICESTER CITY striker Jamie Vardy is losing his battle to be fit to face Newcastle United on Saturday, which will rob him of the chance to make Premier League history at St James’ Park.

Vardy is the most in-form striker in English football at the moment, having scored in nine consecutive Premier League matches, a sequence that leaves him just one game short of Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of ten, which was set in 2003.

However, his prospects of equalling van Nistelrooy’s tally this weekend have receded significantly in the last 24 hours after his ongoing hip problem continued to give cause for concern.

Vardy was forced to withdraw from England’s friendlies with Spain and France after damaging his hip in Leicester’s 2-1 win over Watford, but had hoped a fortnight’s rest would enable him to return to action on Tyneside.

He has not been conclusively ruled out of the trip to the North-East, but his hip is not responding to treatment as hoped and he is currently regarded as a major doubt for Saturday’s game.

His absence would not mean his record run was over – Daniel Sturridge embarked on an eight-game run that featured a lengthy gap in the middle and van Nistelrooy set his record over the course of two different seasons – but it would represent a major blow to Leicester as they look to maintain their current position in the Premier League’s top three.

His place in the starting line-up would go to either Shinji Okazaki or Leonardo Ulloa, and Newcastle would prefer to face either forward than the in-form 28-year-old.

Steve McClaren has spent some of this week working on specific plans to deal with Vardy, and the striker’s absence would represent a considerable boost as the Magpies manager looks to build on the 1-0 win at Bournemouth that preceded the international break.

With Rob Elliot expected to be available despite his thigh problems, there is every chance that McClaren will name an unchanged line-up in two days’ time, and having spent the early weeks of his reign assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the players at his disposal, the Newcastle boss is happy to have settled on an established pecking order that means everyone knows where they stand.

“After the last international break, we looked at the team that had played against Chelsea and Man City and thought we’d seen enough,” said McClaren. “Since then, we’ve stuck with things and kind of settled down.

“Before, people didn’t know the pecking order, but now they roughly know and we all roughly know what the team’s going to be bar one or two.

“What we want to do eventually is get to a position where you can roughly say, ‘After 65 minutes, they’re going to make that change’. We’re nowhere near that at the present moment, but that’s where we want to get to.

“It’s about defining a player’s job and his role, but we’re finding that pecking order. It’s about settling into that.”

The win at Bournemouth took Newcastle out of the relegation zone, and while his side have still claimed just two league wins all season, McClaren can see signs of progress.

The resounding win over Norwich City was a major step forward, and while the following two games against Sunderland and Stoke secured just one point, the Magpies created enough chances to have won both games if things had fallen in their favour.

They were fortunate to win at Bournemouth, but displayed commendable spirit and character to resist the home side’s attacking, traits McClaren is pleased to see emerging.

The Northern Echo:

“We feel like we’re turning a big ship around, and it’s slow,” he said. “But you can see it (turning). I can see it – I see it every day.

“They’re a good bunch of players, they’ve got good talent and they work hard. I’m seeing good things, but it’s a big job.

“It’s going to take a while to turn it around. Some people say it’s a transition, but I think the first 90 days are key. We’ve been trying a lot of things in those first 90 days, but I think in the last four or five weeks we’ve settled.”