Rodgers' Pre-Palace Fitness Considerations

- Manager Brendan Rodgers provides an update on the fitness issues in his Leicester City squad
- The Foxes welcome Crystal Palace to King Power Stadium on Sunday (2pm kick-off)
- Jamie Vardy will undergo further treatment on his knee injury next week
- Papy Mendy and Çağlar Söyüncü are expected to be back in the matchday squad

The Foxes were held to a 0-0 draw with PSV Eindhoven in the home leg of their quarter-finals tie in the UEFA Europa Conference League on Thursday. City's entire back-four on that occasion – Ricardo Pereira, Jonny Evans, Wesley Fofana and Timothy Castagne – have all recently returned from injury.

Jamie Vardy, Danny Ward and Ryan Bertrand remain out with knee injuries. Ayoze Pérez and Çağlar Söyüncü have been recovering from mild illnesses too, while Boubakary Soumaré is back in training after a groin issue. Leicester host Palace at King Power Stadium on Sunday (2pm kick-off).

"It’s just more the accumulation of games," Rodgers told the media at LCFC Training Ground on Friday. "This month, we’ve got eight games to fit in. As I've said to you, like I said to the team, the same team won’t play in every game. You can do but you won’t get the same intensity and energy.

"The attitude will always be first class, but the game’s about energy, intensity and urgency, so we’d naturally have to make changes. We’ll make some changes for Crystal Palace and it’ll be the same for Thursday (the away leg at PSV Eindhoven), but we always pick a team to win."

Discussing individuals directly, Rodgers added: "Jamie won’t be back. He’s got a final injection on Tuesday and we’ll see what the reaction to that is. He can do a lot of fitness work but is not quite ready on kicking the ball, so we’re hoping for positive news on that.

"Papy Mendy will come back into the squad, [Çağlar] Söyüncü will come back in as well. Apart from that, it’s pretty much the same squad.

"We’ll see [on Pérez's availability]. He’s just out this afternoon. He’s felt rough for a few days so he’s out doing a session with the conditioning coaches so we’ll assess that tomorrow. [Soumaré] trained today. It’s just a soreness. He’s back in training today."

All times BST.