Matchday With The Manager - Consistency The Priority

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Matchday With The Manager - Consistency The Priority

Leicester City must continue to strive for improvement in their overall game, says manager Brendan Rodgers, prior to facing Tottenham Hotspur.

2023-02-11T07:00:00.000Z

by Sam Jones

Published

11 Feb, 2023

Matchday With The Manager - Consistency The Priority

Leicester City must continue to strive for improvement in their overall game, says manager Brendan Rodgers, prior to facing Tottenham Hotspur.

Sam Jones

2023-02-11T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager - Consistency The Priority

Leicester City must continue to strive for improvement in their overall game, says manager Brendan Rodgers, prior to facing Tottenham Hotspur.

Sam Jones

2023-02-11T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager - Consistency The Priority

Leicester City must continue to strive for improvement in their overall game, says manager Brendan Rodgers, prior to facing Tottenham Hotspur.

Sam Jones

2023-02-11T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager - Consistency The Priority

Leicester City must continue to strive for improvement in their overall game, says manager Brendan Rodgers, prior to facing Tottenham Hotspur.

Sam Jones

2023-02-11T07:00:00.000Z

The Lilywhites visit King Power Stadium for Saturday's 3pm GMT kick-off in a rich vein of form, with three consecutive victories under their belts, while Leicester themselves have now recorded successive triumphs across league and cup.

Prior to the pair locking horns in this weekend’s Premier League fixture on Filbert Way, City’s manager sat down in front of the assembled media at LCFC Training Ground to share his pre-match thoughts…

A significant success at Villa

After a maiden league victory of the calendar year, there was a lot to like about the Foxes’ performance at Villa Park last Saturday, not least finding the net four times, including one from debutant Tetê, and twice responding to going a goal behind in the first half.

“It was a fantastic win for us,” Rodgers reflected earlier in the week. “We weren’t perfect by any means, but we showed a lot of quality in some of our moments to score the goals. We showed the resilience in the team. The mentality in the team to come back twice, which clearly isn’t an easy task in the Premier League.

“The players kept going, kept fighting and we deserved to win. We’re in an industry where it’s about winning. When you go away to a team like Aston Villa who have been doing so well and get the victory that we did, showing all the attributes that you need to win games of football in the Premier League. We demonstrated that.

“There were areas in our training that we can look at to improve on, but overall, the spirit and the quality and organisation and mentality that we played with. It always gives a good feeling when you come back into the training ground when you’re winning games. The mood is always better.

“Having experience of creating winning teams, that was what we needed. The three guys coming in (Victor Kristiansen, Harry Souttar and Tetê) have brought that energy and freshness to us and brought the balance to the team and it adds competition for places. Obviously, with players coming back, we hope that can push us on in the second part of the season.

“You can just tell as a young player (Tetê) that he watches football and he has a great knowledge of the game. That’s our job with every player that comes in, whatever language they speak, we get that support there for them. That’s the responsibility we have, to give clarity to the messages that we want.

“As you saw last week with him, only just coming in, he understood the position really well. That combination of working with him and his own game intelligence and his appetite to work and run made it a great debut for him. Of course, the longer we have with him, that will improve.”

Iheanacho’s talents coming to the fore

One man who emerged with plenty of plaudits from that game was Nigeria forward Kelechi Iheanacho, who contributed to taking the three points back across the Midlands by scoring one and registering two assists.

Just a second league start this term for the 26-year-old, Rodgers believes there is still more to come from a player who recently brought up 50 goals for the Club, especially following the recruitment of further attacking firepower.

The 50-year-old explained: “You saw last week the effect his talents can have on the game when you have the profiles that you want. He scored a goal, he created two. Especially the the pass to Tetê, it was the perfect weight.

“He does that because he drops in deep, that’s his natural instinct. He will run in behind, but he’s a fantastic link player. In order to do that, you then need people to run beyond. His quality is there, and we now have guys in the roles who can do that. I thought he was excellent last week and he has been very good in training also.”

Opposition analysis

Examining the challenge that Antonio Conte’s Spurs are likely to pose, Rodgers broke down the tactical battles which could play out when the pair go head-to-head, specifically focusing on shifting the defensive mindset.

Tottenham, currently fifth in the top-flight, emerged as 6-2 victors in north London last time they met, though it was very much a close encounter until Son Heung-min’s hat-trick in the final 20 minutes took the game away from the visitors.

The Northern Irishman explained: “We’ve beat them before and obviously we understand their strengths - they’ve got really talented players. They are very good, especially in terms of that counter-attack. When they are low on the pitch, they can break out with players with speed who can make the final pass.

“You have to make sure the pitch is closed behind that, delay the counter-attack and even better win it from those positions. That was the big learning. On the pitch, if you have a feeling that you are playing well, you want to go after the game. You always have to be really careful when playing against Tottenham in that aspect.

“Against the top teams who are challenging for Champions League, your concentration is important. But we showed in the game earlier in the season, for 70 minutes we were well in the game. In the last 20 minutes, we showed a little bit of naivety and when you open up against top players, they really exploited that - Son in particular.

“It’s making sure your defence is organised and in the right positions, that’s the big learning. We gave away two goals from set pieces. At that point in time, we were suffering. Since then, in the main we’ve been good in that aspect.

“We had enough encouragement in that game to show we could play well; we could manage the pressure and we could score goals and create opportunities. With a home crowd behind us, which will be important, we look to put in a really competitive performance. If we can have a similar performance, we have every chance of getting a result.

“It will be a difficult game for the opponents as well. The teams that we’re playing we’ve beaten in each of our last few seasons, so there’s no reason why we can’t do it. We respect that the games will be difficult and tough.

“But we’ve got another dimension to the team now, a freshness in there, an energy and we’ll go in to attack every game, be defensively strong and collectively together. We have the qualities that can really hurt teams as well.”

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