Matchday With The Manager: Rising To The Challenge In League & Cup

With just four games to go in the 2020/21 Premier League season, Brendan Rodgers believes Leicester City's development and growth is on show for all to see ahead of Friday's visit of Newcastle United to King Power Stadium.

2021-05-07T06:00:00.000Z

With just four games to go in the 2020/21 Premier League season, Brendan Rodgers believes Leicester City's development and growth is on show for all to see ahead of Friday's visit of Newcastle United to King Power Stadium.

2021-05-07T06:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Rising To The Challenge In League & Cup

With just four games to go in the 2020/21 Premier League season, Brendan Rodgers believes Leicester City's development and growth is on show for all to see ahead of Friday's visit of Newcastle United to King Power Stadium.

2021-05-07T06:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Rising To The Challenge In League & Cup

With just four games to go in the 2020/21 Premier League season, Brendan Rodgers believes Leicester City's development and growth is on show for all to see ahead of Friday's visit of Newcastle United to King Power Stadium.

2021-05-07T06:00:00.000Z

Matchday With The Manager: Rising To The Challenge In League & Cup

With just four games to go in the 2020/21 Premier League season, Brendan Rodgers believes Leicester City's development and growth is on show for all to see ahead of Friday's visit of Newcastle United to King Power Stadium.

2021-05-07T06:00:00.000Z

City sit third in the table on 63 points, a tally greater than their entire 2019/20 total, before a four-game run-in which sees them tackle Newcastle (H), Manchester United (A), Chelsea (A) and Tottenham Hotspur (H) over the coming three weeks.

There is also an Emirates FA Cup Final against Chelsea at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 15 May to look forward to for the Foxes as the season reaches an exciting crescendo. Last time out, however, Leicester were held to a 1-1 draw by 10-man Southampton at St. Mary's Stadium.

While Rodgers was keen to point out the difficulties of playing against a side with a numerical disadvantage, the Northern Irishman nonetheless admitted the overriding feeling was one of disappointment as the squad returned to the East Midlands last Friday night.

"Maybe before the game, we might have taken that, but in the circumstances of the game, we felt we should have done better," the 48-year-old told the media on Wednesday afternoon at LCFC Training Ground. "However, it’s something we’ve analysed and we now go into our next game.

"Whatever the result was in that game, we wanted to come into this Newcastle game equally looking to win. The mentality doesn’t change. We were disappointed to play 80-odd minutes against 10 men and not win, although it is difficult and it is tough, but credit to Southampton for having that resilience.

"We would always back ourselves with the quality we have and our positioning game to make the breakthrough. We had chances and didn’t quite take them, so we take a point. We showed good fight to come back and we’ll look forward now to Friday’s game."

Steve Bruce's Newcastle are next up for City, who have won their last three league fixtures with the Magpies, but Rodgers highlighted the challenges which the North East side are likely to pose on Friday evening on Filbert Way.

"I think Steve’s done an outstanding job," he explained. "He’s limited in terms of the budget he has to spend on players, but he’s had to go in and organise. Of course, Newcastle’s an incredible club with the size of it, the fanbase, the expectation there. But he’s gone in and he’s organised them very well.

"Graeme [Jones] has obviously gone in there to help him and Steve [Agnew] and you can see the football idea and how they’re trying to shape the team. I think he’s done an outstanding job and he’s shown throughout his career that he’s an excellent manager.

"It’s a different type of game. I think they’ll be very good on the counter attack. They don’t solely just sit back. Newcastle have got some excellent players, some dangerous players at the front end of the field, so they’re a team that like to impose their way of playing.

"Of course, they have players with great speed and can hit you on that counter attack, but we know it’s going to be a tough game. They’ve had some really good results. They’ll be very well organised, but hopefully it’ll be a tough game for Newcastle as well.

"Newcastle’s a huge club with a fanatical fanbase, so every game is important. In every game, they’ll want to play to win. On top of that, they’ve got really good players, a really good staff behind them, and that all makes for a really tough game for us.

"I think they’ll be out to win. They know they’ve had a couple of really good results recently so we have to be ready for that challenge."

Rodgers believes Leicester's development from even just 12 months ago is evident for everyone to see with his side having surpassed their 2019/20 points tally and reached a first FA Cup showpiece in 52 years. There's work to be done, though, says Rodgers, who has called for focus from his players.

"It’s always about learning," the former Liverpool and Celtic manager said. "It’s about improvement. If you see the position we’re in now with four games to go, with an FA Cup Final, we’d have taken that, absolutely. It’s a really exciting end to the season. We’re looking up.

"We’re looking to the games, to go and play with our identity and enjoying it, which is very, very important. Thankfully, we’ve got a lot of our players fit. We’ve obviously got Harvey [Barnes] and JJ (James Justin) who are out, which is a shame for us, but in the main, the rest of the players are all fighting fit.

"We're excited about the games to go. It’s natural development and experiences. We were disappointed on that evening. Over the course of this season, we’ve seen the maturity of the team grow, the control in the team too, and any setbacks we’ve had in the team, we’ve always come back well from them.

"That’s all part of the development of the individual player and the squad. It’s going to be tight right until the end. We’ve always thought that. We can only really concentrate on ourselves and do our own job. In order to finish in those top four places, you’ve got to win games.

"We’re in a great position on 63 points with four more games to go, and we’ll look to win our next game. That’s what we’ll look to do in all the games between now and the end of the season."

Despite only reaching the final three weeks ago, Leicester knew they would have five Premier League fixtures to contest before the big day at Wembley and, after securing seven points from a possible nine so far, Rodgers is adamant that the Foxes can continue to rise to the challenge.

"It feels like a long way away to be fair," he added. "It’s not on our radar at the moment. It was a great semi-final win to get to the final, but we always knew we had important games in between. There are now two games before the final and our focus is just purely on the next game.

"We’ll look towards the FA Cup Final at the middle of next week, but until then, it’s a great opportunity for us, playing at home, to get another three points. It’ll be tough, it’ll be a challenge for us, but this is a team that has constantly risen to the challenge and that’s what they need to do on Friday."

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