Rodgers: A Good Exercise After A Tough Week

- Brendan Rodgers praises Leicester City for their hard work following Saturday’s victory at Cheltenham Town
- Jamie Vardy and Marc Albrighton were on target in the 2-1 win in Gloucestershire
- Rodgers says City are gradually building up their football fitness ahead of the 2019/20 season

The Foxes registered their second-straight pre-season victory after Jamie Vardy cancelled out Luke Varney’s opener and Marc Albrighton hit a winner with 15 minutes to play.

Having already faced Scunthorpe United on Tuesday, Rodgers believes his outfit have coped well during their third week of pre-season.

“It was a good exercise for us,” Rodgers told LCFC TV. “They’ll tell you that pre-season’s just about building up your fitness, but it’s also nice to see some of our young players playing.

“The players have had a really, really hard week this week in terms of the game and they’ve done a lot of double sessions, which has taken a lot out of them.

Gallery 20 Jul 2019

Cheltenham Town 1 Leicester City 2

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“Of course, there’s always things to analyse. The first goal from a throw-in that we conceded wasn’t so good, so we’ll have to look at that, but all in all, it was a good exercise and in the second half, they worked well.”

City fell behind on 16 minutes, when Varney headed in, and Rodgers says his men will analyse the goal they conceded at Jonny-Rocks Stadium.  

The Northern Irishman said: “It’s a great lesson. After that, they switched onto it properly. At that moment, they just switched off over on that side of the field, which brought Andy King right across.

“Then you can see, it doesn’t matter the opponent, if you don’t do it right, you can get punished. That was good for us to do it now.

“I’m very pleased. The players have shown a great application to the work, but they have to. There’s a lot of work for us to do still.

“We’ve got three weeks done now and we’ve got a number of weeks to go before the first game, but they’re building up that football fitness and getting their geography back on the pitch again, which sometimes, no matter how fit you are, you come into the games and you’re covering bigger spaces.

“That always takes a bit of time, but they’re now starting to build up the minutes towards 60 minutes and then obviously getting 90 minutes next weekend.”

While striker Ayoze Pérez missed the clash due to an ankle injury, left-back Callum Elder was forced off just before the interval, and was replaced by Christian Fuchs.

Providing an update on the defender’s fitness, Rodgers said: “He should be okay, He took a blow to the ankle and I think it’s a little bit swollen, but he’ll be okay.”

With Cambridge United up next on Tuesday, Rodgers will be able to welcome back a number of his first-team players that were in action at the U21 European Championships over the summer.

First asked about Vardy’s goal, he said: “He’s got wonderful energy, a great appetite to score and he’s always there when you need someone to finish.

“I thought the second half was good in terms of the tempo and the speed of the game, which was much better and quicker.

“On Tuesday night, we’ll get a few of the Under-21 [international] boys back, so that will be nice to see them get a run out as well. We’re just building towards the beginning of the season.”