Matchday With The Manager – Play With Maximum Desire
The season’s home stretch is now in sight and, with focus solely on Premier League matters, it is time to step up and be counted. The Foxes face Southampton next, a 5:30pm GMT kick-off at St. Mary’s Stadium on Saturday evening.
The pre-match conversation centred around the importance of that fixture, with Rodgers fielding questions from the media in Thursday’s press conference at LCFC Training Ground.
Moving on from midweek disappointment
Bowing out of the Emirates FA Cup at home to Sky Bet Championship outfit Blackburn Rovers on Tuesday, City’s manager is expecting and demanding a vast improvement when coming up against the Saints.
“It was a disappointing result for us,” Rodgers acknowledged, speaking inside the King Power Centre. “I trust the squad and I made changes to the team and gave opportunities to players and then you end up seeing an opportunity go. We put a team out to win the game and go through into a quarter-final.
“But we were nowhere near intense enough in our work and not synchronised in our pressing. I gave an honest opinion after the game, I felt they were better than us and we need to have a far greater intensity in our ambition in the game. Collectively, as well as individually. If you’re a Premier League team and you’re on it and focused, then you expect to go through.
“We haven’t, it’s a missed opportunity, so it’s always disappointing, but now it’s the next game and that’s the focus. We have to bounce back from that in the Premier League. It’s a great game for us to go and play.”
Southampton analysis
The opposition may be sitting at the foot of the table as things stand, but manager Rubén Sellés, now in charge until the end of the 2022/23 campaign, generated an instant impact, overseeing success at Chelsea. The south coast outfit have since lost narrowly to both Leeds United and Grimsby Town, however.
Analysing the qualities the Spaniard has instilled into their team, Rodgers said: “They are just going back to basics a little bit more in how they’ve been before. Some of the more experienced players have come in. I watched the Chelsea game and I’ve seen the Leeds game.
“They are a group of players who work hard and, when their tails are up, can be a really good side and I think have shown that for a few years, so we go there and have to be ready to fight and run and win that physical battle. And then once you earn the right, they you have to play your football and that’s what we aim to do.”
The right approach
Reflecting on the reasons behind the inconsistent form throughout the season, City’s manager believes the players must bring both sides of the game into play, combining grit and hard graft with quality on the pitch.
The Northern Irishman continued: “We’ve got 14 games left in the league where we have to play with the maximum desire and we have to prepare the team to get the results. We know when we bring our football and intensity to the game, then we have a chance to win lots of games.
“But if we don’t, this is a league where you get punished and that’s been the frustration. We beat Aston Villa and Tottenham, which were great performances, and then we dropped off that intensity level and had others which were not so good.
“If you do that, you’ve got every chance of losing, especially in the Premier League. We have to bring that commitment to the team and if we can do that, we’ll win the games that we need to win. It’s mentality. It’s preparation.
“In my experiences of management, it’s why the top players are the top players, because more consistently they have that mentality. It’s not just about one or two wins in four weeks, it’s there every single day.
“The guys here are fantastic, they work really well. But then you have to bring that into the game consistently. When you do, you see the level we can get to. It’s just about that constant and finding the cause within yourself as well as what the team wants to push and play with that ambition.
“If you can do that, then we have the talent, but the talent is no good on its own. You have to work.”
‘A big game’
With six points currently separating the sides, Saturday’s result could have a significant impact on the final outcome of the season for both teams.
“It’s a big game, you can’t hide from that and say it’s not,” the 50-year-old admitted. “I don’t want to dress it up. You can’t hide away from it as players. We have to rely on ourselves. It’s a position we haven’t felt or been near in our time here and where we don’t want to be.
“But it’s reflective of our lack of consistency. We had one point after six games and we haven’t been able to amass as many points as we should have. We concentrate on our performances and focus on that and bringing intensity with the quality we have. From that, it gives us a chance to get points.
“You can go through a number of games very quickly and think that we should be at least 10 points better off than where we are from the number of games we’ve had and where we’ve lost points, but that’s irrelevant. We didn’t see those games through. It’s the position that we’re in.
“I believe that we’ll be fine, but you do your talking on the pitch. We’ve got to show our qualities on a consistent basis. It makes it really difficult if you lose the game, but that’s not our intention. We’re going to win.
“There’s such a long way to go but you can’t deny at this stage that it’s an important game because it is, and that’s the challenge that I’m looking forward to.”