Matchday With The Manager – Adding Quality To Spirit

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Matchday With The Manager – Adding Quality To Spirit

Leicester City will strive to add quality to the spirit shown in midweek when the Foxes host West Ham United on Sunday, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2022-02-13T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager – Adding Quality To Spirit

Leicester City will strive to add quality to the spirit shown in midweek when the Foxes host West Ham United on Sunday, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2022-02-13T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager – Adding Quality To Spirit

Leicester City will strive to add quality to the spirit shown in midweek when the Foxes host West Ham United on Sunday, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2022-02-13T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager – Adding Quality To Spirit

Leicester City will strive to add quality to the spirit shown in midweek when the Foxes host West Ham United on Sunday, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2022-02-13T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager – Adding Quality To Spirit

Leicester City will strive to add quality to the spirit shown in midweek when the Foxes host West Ham United on Sunday, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2022-02-13T07:00:00.000Z

Following a deeply disappointing loss at Nottingham Forest in the Emirates FA Cup last weekend, Leicester headed to Liverpool on Thursday evening. Despite suffering a 2-0 reverse at Anfield, it was a much-improved display from the visitors – one which gives Rodgers encouragement.

The players were applauded off the field on Merseyside by just under 3,000 members of the Blue Army and the manager is hopeful that can give them confidence going into another key fixture.

"It’s a great opportunity for us," the Northern Irishman said. "A good challenge. We had a tough night there earlier on in the season when we lost a man early on and they played well. They’ve got some really good players. However, we come off the back of a much better performance, if not the result.

"Now we’ve got the supporters behind us at the weekend and hopefully they’ll push us on to get a good performance and result. You could see the supporters at the end [at Liverpool]. They appreciated the fight to come to a really, really top team and run Liverpool close right the way through.

"It’s always great to play at home. I enjoy away games as well. We’ve played in two really good stadiums at Forest and Anfield, but we love playing at home.

"The supporters are a great encouragement for us, as they were [at Liverpool]. I thought they were great, singing right the way through, encouraging the team, and now we want to deliver a performance and result for them."

Rodgers was full of praise for David Moyes' Hammers, who currently occupy fourth place in the Premier League standings. The Foxes manager can point easily to the areas where the east London club will be a threat for Leicester at the weekend.

"They’ve played consistently," he continued. "They’ve got players at the top end of the pitch that are quality players who can score goals. They’ve gained confidence from their results last year. They’ve got one of the best midfield players in the Premier League. Declan Rice, for me, is a top, top player.

"They’ve got other guys, like [Jarrod] Bowen, who have come in and done fantastically. He’s a goalscoring winger. Michail Antonio as well. These are guys that can give you a problem. They’ve consistently done very well. They’ve got real experience in the team and David’s done an excellent job."

Rodgers was critical of the Foxes' performance at Forest and insisted on seeing a reaction at Liverpool. The 49-year-old believes he got that on Thursday and the next phase will be to add further quality to Leicester's game when they entertain West Ham at King Power Stadium.

"They know I’m always clear with them," he explained. "I’ll never say anything to you guys (the media) that they don’t hear. I just think sometimes, every now and again, it’s good to be harsh. I don’t want to waste their time or my own time. Our performance and result last weekend wasn’t good enough.

"It’s absolutely as simple as that. That will be a learning for the players. A lot of the players probably haven’t played in derby games, but they know after the weekend, that they’re very, very important games. We’ve reflected on it over the last few days.

"My interests are always with the team, the guys, making them the best they can be. Sometimes that’s about telling them what they don’t want to hear. You saw their reaction [at Liverpool]. They were close together and played with the spirit we would want.

"We’ll look to bring that spirit, that mentality and that togetherness and add that extra bit of quality to our game at the weekend and see if we can get a result."

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