Matchday With The Manager: Preparing For Fulham & Adapting Tactical Strategies

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Matchday With The Manager: Preparing For Fulham & Adapting Tactical Strategies

Leicester City will come up against a Fulham side on Wednesday which is well equipped to launch a successful bid for Premier League survival, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2021-02-03T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Preparing For Fulham & Adapting Tactical Strategies

Leicester City will come up against a Fulham side on Wednesday which is well equipped to launch a successful bid for Premier League survival, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2021-02-03T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Preparing For Fulham & Adapting Tactical Strategies

Leicester City will come up against a Fulham side on Wednesday which is well equipped to launch a successful bid for Premier League survival, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2021-02-03T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Preparing For Fulham & Adapting Tactical Strategies

Leicester City will come up against a Fulham side on Wednesday which is well equipped to launch a successful bid for Premier League survival, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2021-02-03T07:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Preparing For Fulham & Adapting Tactical Strategies

Leicester City will come up against a Fulham side on Wednesday which is well equipped to launch a successful bid for Premier League survival, says manager Brendan Rodgers.

2021-02-03T07:00:00.000Z

The fourth-placed Foxes travel to Craven Cottage to tackle Scott Parker's side in a 6pm GMT kick-off after a nine-game unbeaten run came to an end against Leeds United on Sunday.

While Leicester have a healthy advantage over the Cottagers in the standings, Rodgers nonetheless harbours no reservations about the depth of quality within the west London side's squad.

"There’s no doubt when I see them play, their game and the quality of the players they have, then absolutely," the Northern Irishman said, when asked about their chances of survival.

"They had a very good [summer] window in getting the types of players they got in. It took a little bit of time for them to mould together.

"But when I see their game and the pace in their team and their organisation – they’ve been unlucky in some of their results – but they’re virtually in every single game they play in.

"They’ve got dangerous players and I think they’ll get stronger in the second part of the season, so for us, we have to be ready for a very difficult game.

"If you only look at the league and see they’re in the bottom three, you might think we’re in the top four, so it’s an easy game.

"But anyone in our profession, working in the game, knows it’s not the case. Look at Sheffield United the other week against Manchester United.

"You have to prepare for every game. It’s going to be a tough game and we recognise that after playing them before and losing to them, so we will have to be at our best to get a result."

Rodgers believes Fulham will pose a challenge which is entirely different to the one presented by Leeds at King Power Stadium on Sunday - largely due to the playing style deployed by Marcelo Bielsa's men.

However, the former Liverpool and Celtic manager says Leicester can use the frustration of that result as a motivation to do better in future, just as they did following similar setbacks in 2020/21.

"It’s a totally different game," the 48-year-old explained. "The uniqueness of Leeds’ style with that man-marking game, there’s no other team in the Premier League that plays that way.

"That sometimes is a big change for the players, actually, when they go into the game. This game will be totally different. They’ve got good strength and pace in the counter attack.

"Our consistency level was very, very good. The game, we could have easily got something from it and it was a game that’s fairly straightforward to analyse.

"That’s the positive in it. I know for a fact how we work here and the trust we have in our process. That has always been about, when we have had a setback, to look at it and move on.

"That’s why we’ve been able to move on from some of the games we have lost and gone on to get some fantastic performances and results. We tend not to dwell on it so much.

"We’ll refocus over these next couple of days and we’ll look to then win the next game."

Leicester approach each fixture with the same determination to perform, irrespective of opponent, and will continue that approach at Fulham, Rodgers told the media.

"Any game you lose, it’s frustrating," he added. "It doesn’t matter who the opponent is. We certainly don’t categorise the teams at the top as more important than the teams at the bottom.

"Every game in the Premier League is so tight. You only need to look at Leeds’ results to understand that they’re a really good side who work tremendously hard and have quality.

"That combination always makes it a difficult game. For us, every single game in the Premier League is tough. We just lost out in some key areas yesterday.

"Chance and opportunity-wise, there wasn’t too much in it, but they finished the few they had in the second half and we didn’t, so we ended up losing the game.

"We have to accept that they were better on the day and now we can analyse it and move on from it."

Without Jamie Vardy and Wilfred Ndidi for a short spell, City have had to adapt over recent weeks, but adjusting to life without key players has been a familiar challenge over the season so far.

Despite the likes of Ndidi, Ricardo Pereira, Çağlar Söyüncü, Timothy Castagne and Daniel Amartey all having been absent for spells this term, the Foxes have often found a way to exhibit their best this campaign.

For Rodgers, it's now about doing so again, even for a short period of time: "We’ve done that before. Any time those players haven’t played, we’ve had another way of playing. Our principles will always been the same.

"We’ll always look to dominate games and be creative and look to score goals, but naturally, when you have a player like Jamie not playing, it’s very hard to replicate that.

"He’s irreplaceable in what he does on the last line. The other types of players we have in the squad are not of that profile.

"We have it on the sides, with Harvey [Barnes] and other players, but maybe not in a central way, so naturally, you will play differently. We’ve had results with players other than Jamie playing.

"Yesterday, we didn’t quite manage it, so we have to learn from it and look to move on."

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