Matchday With The Manager: Remaining Agile To Circumstances & Tackling Brighton

As Leicester City's fixture schedule condenses again, with the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion in the Emirates FA Cup, Brendan Rodgers has outlined the importance of managing both the physical and psychological loading on players.

2021-02-10T06:59:00.000Z

As Leicester City's fixture schedule condenses again, with the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion in the Emirates FA Cup, Brendan Rodgers has outlined the importance of managing both the physical and psychological loading on players.

2021-02-10T06:59:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Remaining Agile To Circumstances & Tackling Brighton

As Leicester City's fixture schedule condenses again, with the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion in the Emirates FA Cup, Brendan Rodgers has outlined the importance of managing both the physical and psychological loading on players.

2021-02-10T06:59:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Remaining Agile To Circumstances & Tackling Brighton

As Leicester City's fixture schedule condenses again, with the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion in the Emirates FA Cup, Brendan Rodgers has outlined the importance of managing both the physical and psychological loading on players.

2021-02-10T06:59:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Remaining Agile To Circumstances & Tackling Brighton

As Leicester City's fixture schedule condenses again, with the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion in the Emirates FA Cup, Brendan Rodgers has outlined the importance of managing both the physical and psychological loading on players.

2021-02-10T06:59:00.000Z

Wednesday's fifth round tie against the Seagulls is City's 33rd competitive outing of a 2020/21 campaign which has also included matches in the Premier League, UEFA Europa League and Carabao Cup.

Despite the unique nature of the challenges being posed by a season like no other, Rodgers has been delighted with the mental agility being exhibited by his players, as well as their performances on the pitch.

"The players aren’t robots," the Northern Irishman said on Monday. "We’ve absolutely maximised everything until this point out of the players. We had a huge injury list and some of our key players were out.

"I tried to look on the other side. It gives the opportunity for other players to come in and those guys have been brilliant for us this year. If they’re not featuring so much now, they’ve played a really important role in getting us into the position where we are now. From a psychological perspective, you cannot use the same players in every single game.

"As much as you’d maybe want to play some players in certain games, you can’t because of the close proximity of the games.

"Of course, you still want energy and enthusiasm and a freshness going into every game that you play, that’s the reason why you have to make changes."

Very little has surprised Rodgers this season and the former Liverpool and Celtic manager described some of the preparatory work which was conducted in the summer to prepare for the campaign ahead.

"We all knew the type of season this was going to be," he continued. "We knew the rhythm of our work was going to change. How you manage that was going to determine how well you could do. Recovering from setbacks and disappointments, that was obviously going to be important. We all knew and understood before a ball was kicked how much of a test it would be.

"I can’t speak for other clubs, we’ve just tried to manage it as best as we could with the squad that we have. The players haven’t complained, they’ve just got on with it, and they’ve given their all in every game.

"We just look at the next game. My only focus at this moment in time is Brighton, of course, and we want to get to the quarter-final.

"We were disappointment when we went out of the League Cup at the beginning of the season. We’d had a lot of injuries, but the next competition was the FA Cup. We want to do well. We’re in a good position in the Europa League and a decent position in the domestic league, so we just have to attack every competition, do the best we can, and see where it takes us at the end of the season."

Rodgers also elaborated on the life of a manager amid such an intense schedule, admitting his time is dominated in large parts by work, but he says he continues to enjoy it as much as ever.

"Of course, it’s very demanding, but I can’t say it’s anything other than what I love to do to be honest," the 48-year-old explained.

"There’s long days and not too many rest periods within it, but whether it’s press or preparing for the game, of course, there’s a lot of work to do. Over the last number of years, what I’ve been able to do much better is prioritise. When I was a younger manager, you maybe try to do 20 things in the day and you try your best to get them all done.

"You realise, with the more experience you gain, it’s all about efficiency. So rather than 20, you do five key roles in the day and then ensure that is all planned and specific and detailed.

"Efficiency is obviously very important, but I love my work. There’s more football on now. I watch a game or two games every night, so it’s not the worst job in the world."

Looking directly to Wednesday's test against Graham Potter's Brighton - a team who have defeated Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool in recent weeks - Rodgers expects another stern challenge.

"You’re seeing a marrying of performances and results," he added. "They’ve always performed well, sometimes not necessarily getting the results, but they’ve always been clear in how they play. They’ve got a very good football idea. I’ve always said that every time we’ve played against them, so nothing’s changed.

"They’ve not conceded a lot in the last few games. When they came into the game we played a number of weeks back, they were in decent form as well, in terms of performance.

"We played well on the evening and got a good result, but we know we’ll have to be equal to do to progress into the next round. In terms of performance, not so much has changed.

"They’ve always played well and had a confidence in the identity of how they work and now they’ve been able to keep clean sheets."

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