Matchday With The Manager – Continue The Positivity
The long-awaited Premier League return is upon us as Leicester City entertain Newcastle United in their maiden post-Christmas bout and first league fixture since November.
The Foxes triumphed at West Ham United that day, one of four wins from their previous five top-flight encounters prior to the FIFA World Cup. The midweek Carabao Cup victory over MK Dons, meanwhile, was a sixth win in seven across all competitions.
Speaking to the assembled media during Friday afternoon's press conference in the King Power Centre at LCFC Training Ground, City’s manager shared his pre-match thoughts...
Taking on a resurgent Newcastle
While Thursday evening's quarter-final draw threw up another meeting with the Magpies in the New Year, full focus this week is on how to best prepare for the Boxing Day clash on Filbert Way, Rodgers revealed.
He was full of praise for the work of his opposite number, Eddie Howe, who has transformed the North East club's fortunes since being appointed in November 2021.
“They’ve made a great start to the season,” the Northern Irishman remarked. “They’ve got a very good side. They’ve got good physicality in the team and great quality. I think Eddie [Howe] has done a fantastic job since he’s been there.
“They’ve signed players that have really improved the squad and the dynamic of the team. They’ve always had talented players but those that they’ve brought into the backline in particular and the goalkeeper really gives them that bit of dominance and that gives the base for the rest of the team to work.
“He has done that very well, going there and picking up a team that was suffering a bit. He was able to galvanise them. He’s given them an identity and a philosophy of how he wants to play and work.
“The biggest thing when you go to any club is to convince the players to play how you want them to play and he’s clearly done that. They look hungry and they have talent. He’ll look to continue that I’m sure.
“I look at Newcastle and I think off the field as well they’ve brought in Dan Ashworth, who is a top operator in the game as a sporting director. And then you of course have the supporters of Newcastle who give a great intensity to the game.
“Overall, they’re trying to build something there, do it the right way, implement a style of football that’s exciting, aggressive and on and off the field they are only going to improve and get better.
“With the experiences that I’ve had here, when you’re up there in those positions, you need some luck with injuries and to have your best players available. It happened to us towards the end of our two seasons when we just missed out on the Champions League - we didn’t have our best players available and that’s a challenge.
“But I’m pretty sure Newcastle will strengthen their squad and if they do that, with the players that they have already there, it will be a big motivation to stay there.”
An upturn in form
The statistics look much more favourable for Rodgers’ side than they did during the opening months of the season. The positivity continued on Tuesday night, scoring three without reply at Stadium MK to see off Sky Bet League 1 opposition, backed by 6,559 travelling supporters who were able to see their team in action for the first time in over a month.
There is a collective desire to keep producing similar performances in the top-flight over the festive period.
“We feel in a good way,” the former Celtic manager told the media. “We hadn’t started the season well but the consistency and the structure that the players have played in over the last seven to eight weeks was absolutely brilliant and it gave us a real foundation.
“We hope to continue with that. The feeling is really good. We feel we’re getting back to our level again, with quality and more importantly, with a bit more of our defensively mentality. We weren’t defending as well as in the first seven as we have done in the last eight, so it’s been much better from that perspective.
“We want to be able to continue with that mentality. I think there’s still a long way to go. So, it’s a very good game for us. With the Boxing Day tradition in this country, it should be a great game, a great atmosphere and we want to really go and attack it.
“I was excited the other night for our cup game against MK Dons. It just felt great again getting ready to travel and get the game in. We had over 6,500 at MK Dons, so the support was great.”
A beneficial break
While seven Foxes were out in Qatar, the majority headed out for warm weather training in Abu Dhabi. It provided a unique opportunity to reassert the principles of play which had served Leicester so well in the weeks prior to the winter break.
The 49-year-old added: “It was really just about reintroducing the football ideas that have given us that mentality over the last seven or eight weeks, because it can quickly disappear when players are away at the World Cup and having a bit of time off.
“It was firstly reintroducing that defensive mentality, in terms of organisation and that aggression, and just consolidating why that’s important for us and giving clarity so we know those roles.
“We’ve been on a really good run of clean sheets and that’s the responsibility from the very top of the pitch. And then our offensive structure – our movement, our spaces, the speed of the ball.
“We want to attack the game, we want to create opportunities, but also that balance whenever you’re not dominating the game and how you deal with that pressure. That’s something that the players have done really well in these last couple of months.”