- Leicester City lose 2-1 to Notts County in their first pre-season friendly of the summer
- Harvey Barnes found the net, before Kairo Mitchell and Aden Baldwin struck for the Magpies
- Manager Brendan Rodgers was pleased with the workout from a fitness perspective
- He also provided an update on the squad and their upcoming trip to Évian-les-Bains
The Foxes led the behind-closed-doors fixture with National League outfit Notts County at LCFC Training Ground, with Harvey Barnes netting their first goal of the summer. Kairo Mitchell and Aden Baldwin, though, scored for the Magpies, as Leicester fielded a total of 22 players.
"In terms of the objectives of the game – which are based around fitness – we were playing against a good side who will do well in the National League, so it was a really good exercise," Rodgers told LCFC TV at full-time. "I’m just pleased that the players got through and there’s no injuries.
"I think towards the end of the half, they will start to feel [the heat] that little bit, but in terms of the game, the fitness is important. We will obviously get much better with the ball, more fluency, and especially on a hot day, you’ve got to keep the ball better than we did today.
"We were in the top five for goals in the league last year, but we want to score more."
Players have returned for pre-season training in a staggered sense over the past fortnight and more will do so in time for next week's camp in Évian-les-Bains, south-east France.
One player who will not be there, meanwhile, is Club captain Kasper Schmeichel, who after starring for Denmark last month, is expected to feature prominently in the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The 35-year-old Premier League, FA Cup and FA Community Shield winner has 84 caps to his name.
"There’s a number of them who will join us next week," the Foxes manager continued. "It’s obviously been very broken over this first couple of weeks. A lot of the guys have just come in, some of the first team squad, over the last four or five days.
"Another group of them will join us in Evian and then Kasper [Schmeichel] will be the last one back. I’ve given him some extra time. He’s going to the World Cup, so he’s going to have a long period of games once he does come back. He’s got that little bit extra time, but we’re looking forward to Evian."
Rodgers is looking forward to the opportunity of building on City's pre-season work in France, before Leicester tackle OH Leuven in Belgium next Saturday (1pm BST kick-off). Domestic clashes with Hull City, Preston North End, Derby County and Spanish side Sevilla then follow for the Foxes.
"It'll be a continuation of the fitness [work]," he explained. "Evian was a very important pre-season trip for us when I first came in here back in 2019.
"We got a lot of great work done, on and off the pitch, and I think this season… I talked about a healthy shake-up of the squad, and a big part of that was based around a reconnection with our culture after a really difficult couple of years where the pandemic has left a lot of teams a little bit broken.
"This is an opportunity for us to come back together and reconnect again and continue with pre-season work."