Matchday With The Manager: Being Ready For The Final Run-In

Brendan Rodgers has called on his Leicester City players to fight to achieve their objectives as the 2020/21 season reaches its critical final run-in, which continues on Tuesday against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

2021-05-11T06:00:00.000Z

Brendan Rodgers has called on his Leicester City players to fight to achieve their objectives as the 2020/21 season reaches its critical final run-in, which continues on Tuesday against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

2021-05-11T06:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Being Ready For The Final Run-In

Brendan Rodgers has called on his Leicester City players to fight to achieve their objectives as the 2020/21 season reaches its critical final run-in, which continues on Tuesday against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

2021-05-11T06:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Being Ready For The Final Run-In

Brendan Rodgers has called on his Leicester City players to fight to achieve their objectives as the 2020/21 season reaches its critical final run-in, which continues on Tuesday against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

2021-05-11T06:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Being Ready For The Final Run-In

Brendan Rodgers has called on his Leicester City players to fight to achieve their objectives as the 2020/21 season reaches its critical final run-in, which continues on Tuesday against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

2021-05-11T06:00:00.000Z

The Foxes have beaten Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal in the Premier League this season. Although overcoming the Red Devils in the Emirates FA Cup, Ole Gunnar Solskjær's men are the only member of the 'top six' to have denied City a victory in the league.

Speaking ahead of Leicester's visit to Old Trafford, Rodgers pointed to the qualities it takes to defeat the league's biggest clubs and highlighted the need for City to showcase the desire they have to remain among those sides in the Premier League table until the end of the season.

"It shows you how well they’ve done in a lot of the other games," the Northern Irishman said. "We’ve got to play the Europa League finalists and the Champions League finalists in two of our last three league games. That shows you how well these players have done to be up there competing and fighting.

"We’re very close to achieving what it is we want, but we know we have to really fight. We’ve made it difficult for ourselves, that’s the reality. In the last two games, we haven’t got the results we wanted to and now it means we’ve got to really push and look to win these games, starting with the next game.

"The likes of Kasper [Schmeichel], Jonny [Evans], Vards (Jamie Vardy) are experienced players. We’ve got a lot of young players in our backline. I’ve mentioned before, leading into this period, that when you’re challenging at the top end of the table, or for trophies, the concentration level has to increase.

"You’ve got to be really, really focused. That’s the hard part at this time of the season because, if you’re not, and you go loose, you’ll get punished. That’s what happened to us against Newcastle. Our concentration was nowhere near good enough in certain aspects and we made too many mistakes."

Evans, however, may miss Tuesday's clash against his former side with a heel issue which forced him out of Friday's encounter with Newcastle United. Nevertheless, Rodgers is confident that Wesley Fofana, alongside Çağlar Söyüncü, possesses the qualities to step up to the challenge.

"He’s done it before," the Foxes manager added. "He’s done exceptionally well. I thought Wesley was outstanding against Newcastle in all fairness. He was very, very good. He was strong and aggressive. He had a couple of loose passes which weren’t so good, but he’s 20 years of age.

"As a young player at this level, he’s been exceptional and I thought he was really strong for us on Friday. It would have been a good test for him up against Callum Wilson, who’s a top-class striker."

While City's fixture schedule is once again a challenge - a regular occurrence in 2020/21 - Manchester United's is even more daunting. After last Thursday's UEFA Europa League Semi-Final against Roma at Stadio Olimpico, they then headed to Aston Villa on Sunday.

On Tuesday, they welcome Leicester to Old Trafford, before hosting Liverpool two days later. Solskjær has spoken publicly about the need to rotate his squad in order to navigate such a gruelling schedule and Rodgers says he can sympathise with the dilemmas which the Norwegian is facing.

"I’ve got empathy for him, it’s a hell of a schedule to play Thursday, Sunday, Tuesday and then Thursday," Rodgers explained. "It’s tough physically for the players. No matter how good a squad you have or how big it is, it’s a tough turnaround. It is what it is for us.

"(Ahead of the Emirates FA Cup Final) Chelsea will have a midweek game as well so, for us, it’ll be good to get a game in all fairness, to get the Newcastle game out of our system. We’ll recover and then we’ll get ready to go again."

Now, though, all focus for Leicester is on hitting back from Friday's reverse against Newcastle and ensuring they achieve their objectives. Tuesday's visit to Old Trafford precedes the FA Cup showpiece against Chelsea at Wembley, but Rodgers is only looking towards tackling the Red Devils at present.

"It was just a really disappointing performance," the former Liverpool and Celtic manager continued. "We’ve shown over the course of this season how the squad and team is developing. It’s just about concentration. If you’re concentrated, it gives you less possibilities to make mistakes. We lacked that.

"If you do that against good players, they’ll punish you, so that’s the learning. You’ve got to be really focused. This is the stage of the season where, if you’re challenging and if you’ve got young players, then that’s the learning they need to have in order to succeed at this level.

"We lost a really poor [first] goal and made too many mistakes in our passing, but ultimately, we didn’t defend well enough. That’s not normally something we would do. My approach has always been to support the players.

"That’s my role. I’ll always never get too carried away with them when we win, never too disappointed when we lose. I’m disappointed, of course, with the nature of the Newcastle game. Sport at the highest level means you have that disappointment.

"I go home and analyse the game to see more of the details of the game and then go back in and look to help them improve on that. That’s what the game’s about. It’s support, it’s getting around them, it’s being candid in where we can be better, and then we get into the next game.

"Let’s fight now because everything is to play for still."

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