- Leicester City are gearing up for a ‘long but exciting’ week, says manager Brendan Rodgers
- The Foxes ended their 2020 pre-season campaign with a 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers on Saturday
- City begin their 2020/21 Premier League campaign at West Bromwich Albion on Sunday 13 September (2pm BST kick-off)
The Foxes’ pre-season fixture schedule came to a close on Saturday, when they drew 1-1 with Blackburn Rovers at King Power Stadium in their third outing ahead of their trip to West Bromwich Albion.
For Rodgers, City’s three pre-season matches have allowed him to field a number of youngsters and seasoned professionals ahead of a ‘long but exciting’ week in preparation for the Baggies.
Rodgers said of his side’s pre-season: “I think, it has been totally different. You're normally at that five/six week period to build on. It felt really that they've come back very quickly and apart from the first couple of weeks, it's been very broken.
“Every team will be in the same situation, arriving into next week. We'll not have the players back until Thursday, and probably our first real training exercise with them all will be on the Friday, so it's very, very different.
“But like I say, we have to have the agility. But come next weekend, we'll be ready to get the engines switched on again and go for the season.”
One man involved on Saturday was defender Daniel Amartey, who marked his first match at King Power Stadium in nearly two years with a headed goal against Tony Mowbray’s side.
“You think the last time he played was back on this field and obviously that was when he came off [injured],” Rodgers said. “He's worked so hard. It's really difficult period for him over a long period of time.
“But he comes back in and he was there to anticipate the mistake by the goalkeeper and finish for the header. So, he'll have a nice feeling tonight and he'll continue to work hard to get himself up to some sort of level of fitness.”
There will be just 49 days in between City’s final match of 2019/20 and their first outing of 2020/21, and Rodgers says his outfit are enthusiastic about their seventh-straight campaign in England’s top flight.
“[It’s] a long but exciting week,” he added. “We'll give them a couple days now to recover. They've had a hard week just gone on, and then, obviously, from Tuesday onwards, it'll be a big run in and a lot of preparation work going in for next Sunday.
“We're excited by the start to the season. We obviously won't have all our work done on transfer side of things, but we'll have a strong mentality going into the first game and look to start with a winning start.”