‘Go Again For The Last Seven’ – Rowett On The Run-In

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‘Go Again For The Last Seven’ – Rowett On The Run-In

Gary Rowett has his eye on overseeing a productive Easter weekend for Leicester City as we head into Friday’s battle with Preston North End.

2026-04-03T08:40+01:00

by Sam Jones

Published

03 Apr, 2026

‘Go Again For The Last Seven’ – Rowett On The Run-In

Gary Rowett has his eye on overseeing a productive Easter weekend for Leicester City as we head into Friday’s battle with Preston North End.

Sam Jones

2026-04-03T08:40+01:00

‘Go Again For The Last Seven’ – Rowett On The Run-In

Gary Rowett has his eye on overseeing a productive Easter weekend for Leicester City as we head into Friday’s battle with Preston North End.

Sam Jones

2026-04-03T08:40+01:00

‘Go Again For The Last Seven’ – Rowett On The Run-In

Gary Rowett has his eye on overseeing a productive Easter weekend for Leicester City as we head into Friday’s battle with Preston North End.

Sam Jones

2026-04-03T08:40+01:00

‘Go Again For The Last Seven’ – Rowett On The Run-In

Gary Rowett has his eye on overseeing a productive Easter weekend for Leicester City as we head into Friday’s battle with Preston North End.

Sam Jones

2026-04-03T08:40+01:00

The first of two fixtures in four days, with a trip to Sheffield Wednesday also on the horizon on Monday, it presents a chance to put points on the board in the battle for Championship safety.

Ahead of this 3pm BST kick-off against the Lilywhites at King Power Stadium, City’s Manager addressed the media at LCFC Training Ground to catch up after the international break and reiterate the key areas of focus for our upcoming matches.

‘Refresh and review’

Back at home for the first time since facing QPR on Filbert Way on 14 March.

Rowett believes the squad has returned from the break in action mentally recharged, with several staying in Seagrave to continue work on the training pitch, while others jetted off to represent their countries on the international stage.

“When you have an international break and the first game is on a Friday, it just means Thursday is your day to prepare,” he told reporters earlier this week. “Often that Thursday is a day when the players come back in, you can rest a few, you can make sure they aren’t rushing back to the training ground off the back of a 10-hour flight, then the Friday gives you a day to prepare.

“I know for everyone the narrative is that, because of the position that we’re in, you have to be working 24/7 every single day to make sure you win games. But at the same time, you’ve got a lot of players who have played a lot of football.

“With the pressure at this stage of the season as well, sometimes for a couple of days I think it doesn't do any player any harm to go away and refresh and review what you’ve done and be able to rethink anything you’d perhaps do differently and come back in ready to go.

“That’s what everyone has done. I think it’s a nice balance, the right thing to do. After Watford, ideally you’d want to play quickly again, but you’d never turn down a little bit of a breather in this division to go again for the last seven games, which we know are vastly important.

“The players are ready to go and attack the games. The players will be in a good position to kick on physically. They should be in a very good position mentally, [feeling] refreshed. They’ve spent a little bit of time with their families, trained, worked hard, [there’s] no excuses for me.”

‘Keep improving’

We drew a blank at Vicarage Road last time out.

Adding detail on the work carried out over the past two weeks, the 52-year-old explained that, off the back of a goalless draw at Watford last time out, finding the back of the net more consistently is a key target of the final run-in, while also outlining the need for a collective effort from everyone in this period.

Rowett continued: “We’re just continuing to build some of that fitness into players that haven’t played regularly. I think that’s been really important to get to be able to build up their time on the pitch. Generally, it’s about building on the principles that we’ve spoken about.

“It’s quite simple, really. If you look at us as a team at the moment, we’ve made some real improvements defensively and in terms of the team, we’re creating lots of good chances. It’s just that last clinical edge that we want to keep improving.

“Sometimes that’s the hardest thing, because it comes down to a bit of individual calmness and quality in those moments. But, of course, that’s been the focus of the period of time we’ve had.

“I think we’ve made some good improvements in the seven games but we want to improve a little bit more in certain key areas that are going to quite clearly define the last seven and we’re looking forward to the challenge.

“I would just say, in this moment in time, I would reiterate exactly what I said on my first day in the building: we need everyone together. That is going to have a big [impact] and define a lot of how our season finishes.

“If it’s me and you’re a supporter of this Football Club and have been for a long time, you want to feel some form of success at the end of the season. The only way we’re going to do that is together. I’ll definitely ask the fans to get behind us.”

‘A different challenge’

The man in the opposition dugout.

Sitting just outside the top half of the table, our next visitors won for the first time in eight matches prior to the break, and Rowett knows exactly what we’ll be coming up against at 3pm on Friday.

“I know Paul Heckingbottom pretty well and I know he’ll have them really well drilled,” the former Foxes defender analysed. “They are still in reach of the play-offs if they put a run together. I’m sure they’ll be keen to do that.

“They play a slightly different system to one or two of the teams that we’ve played recently. It’s a different challenge for us, we’re at home, it’s up to us to make the running, break them down and try and solve that problem.

“But we’re against a really hard-working team who have shown they can go and get results and they’ve got the quality to do that. We’ll treat that game exactly how we would any other game and it’ll be exactly the same on Monday.

“It’s easier to look at fixtures and think these are good opportunities. I don’t think it works like that. You have to be at your best all the time to go and get results in this division.

“I think it allows you to play with a little more freedom when there’s less pressure on you, so you can look at it in different ways, but when you’re at this stage, with only seven games left, to play two in this period, that’s going to go a long way to defining how you feel about yourself after those games and what the last five look like.

“Like every game, we’re going out there to win and we’re going to try and win. We’ve been very close, but haven't quite done that yet, so we have to find a way to do it.”

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