Matchday With The Manager – Regain The Momentum
The Foxes manager, speaking to the media on Friday, revealed his eagerness to begin climbing the table again after being stopped in their tracks since returning from the FIFA World Cup break.
With 17 points from their 17 games so far this term, City currently sit 13th in the Premier League standings ahead of Tuesday night’s home fixture against Fulham at King Power Stadium (7:45pm GMT kick-off).
Reflecting on recent results
He began by referencing the importance of producing a performance more similar to that seen at Anfield in their final game of 2022, rather than the display against Newcastle United on Boxing Day.
Beaten 3-0 by the Magpies, Rodgers felt they then deserved more than leaving Merseyside empty handed four days later, after losing out 2-1 to Jürgen Klopp’s side.
“I’ve always said, good teams start quick and finish strong,” the 49-year-old told reporters. “Our start against Newcastle was unexpected. There was a real disappointment for us. It was a big surprise, especially with the run of games that we’ve been on, how well we’d started games, how well we’d been in the middle of games and finishing them strong.
“But it’s something that can happen. I was much happier [against Liverpool]. We showed a really good reaction. I don’t think anyone can argue that we shouldn’t have taken something from the game. You’re never happy to lose, but it was a little bit more like us.
“We had some spells in the game where we played good football and defended strong. When you come away to the biggest teams, you need maximum concentration, and you need maximum commitment and that was the key message in terms of mental strategy going into the game.
“You come to a great arena, and you want a fast start and get yourself in the game, so you have to make sure your warm-up is right, your concentration is right and it worked out really well for us. We then looked a good team, we looked confident and comfortable.
“You expect a little bit of pressure from Liverpool because of the level of players but that seven minutes ultimately cost us. It’s just decision-making and unfortunately, it’s gone against us, but we’ll go again. The guys gave everything.”
Responding against high-flying Fulham
The West London outfit have enjoyed an impressive opening to 2022/23 since promotion from the Sky Bet Championship under Marco Silva, sitting in the top half of the Premier League after collecting 25 points in 17 games.
While looking to combat the threats that Fulham pose, Rodgers will be concentrating on the work carried out at LCFC Training Ground to be in the best possible position to attack Tuesday’s game head on.
“They’ve had a really good start to the season,” the Northern Irishman stated. “They invested well in the squad and they’ve had that confidence from coming up and they’ll be buoyed by their last away game. For us really, it’s about focusing on ourselves.
“We’ll analyse them closely over the next couple of days and we’ll look forward to that now. It’s mostly about recovery. You can’t be too intense. It’s a lot of the analysis work that you do and show the players. You can do some lighter active work on the field before the game.
“Now we’re moving into 2023, we want to get ourselves into the top half of the league as quickly as we can. Once we do that, it’s about looking to win our next game. I don’t have any doubt about the squad, the team.
“They’re great guys, they are an honest group of players. Whatever they lack in terms of quality, they certainly make up for in effort and endeavour. We’ll see where we finish at the end of the season. It’s a very difficult league, but they’ll certainly work hard.
“Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has played what would be a full season of Premier League football, so he’s only going to get better. Harvey Barnes, all these guys are improving and developing, and you want to be able to develop the squad so we can keep pushing. Hopefully we can do that.”
Injury updates
The manager also provided updates on the fitness of James Maddison, who hasn’t played since the win over West Ham United on 12 November, and Jonny Evans, with the defender continually absent following an injury picked up against Troyes last month. Patson Daka then limped off 15 minutes into the game at Liverpool.
Rodgers said: “He (James Maddison) has had good news from the scan, which is positive news for us. I think the medical team will work with him over the course of the next seven to 10 days to build him up, so hopefully we get no reaction from that and if that’s the case, then he can re-join our training group.
“We have to be mindful as well that it’ll probably be eight weeks or so since he played a game. Everton was his last real game, so he’s not going to come in and be right up to speed straight away.
“But just to have that quality and that creativity and that personality, it takes this team to a different dimension when you have that level of player. We just need to get him back and hopefully he can then be really important for us over the second part of the season.
“Jonny [Evans] won’t be [available] until probably into early February. Speaking to the medical team, it looks like it’ll be longer than what they thought. It’s unfortunate. It’s something that we just have to deal with.
“A player missing out gives an opportunity for someone else. But it’s the nature of the season. With people coming back [from the World Cup], I think you see it the first couple of games, a few niggles here and there for players. We just have to manage them.”