- Brendan Rodgers reacts to Leicester City's 3-0 defeat by Chelsea on Saturday
- The Foxes manager conceded the Blues were the better side at King Power Stadium
- He also addressed City's issues defending set-plays and explained the home side's substitutions
- Ricardo Pereira was absent due to a 'tightening' in his hamstring, Rodgers added
Goals from Antonio Rüdiger, N'Golo Kanté and Christian Pulisic for the European champions consigned the Foxes to defeat, leaving them 12th in the Premier League ahead of Saturday's later fixtures.
Speaking afterwards, Rodgers told LCFC TV: "The best team won. We were disappointing in the first half. We made much more of a game of it in the second half. We needed the goal, to get to 2-1, but we didn’t quite make it. No complaints. They were much better than us."
Rüdiger's opener for the Blues was a headed effort from a corner and Rodgers says more work must be done in order to eradicate that from City's game.
"It’s a big, big issue for us, the set pieces," the Northern Irishman added. "We’re conceding way too many and, obviously, we’re going behind in games and that’s giving us a big problem. We’ve looked at it and we need to work even harder on it and see where we’re at."
James Maddison and Kelechi Iheanacho were introduced at the interval and Rodgers discussed his thinking behind the switch: "To bring more technique into the game. We played exactly the same system in the first half, trying to keep the two wingers in.
"[We wanted] to bring that technicality and physicality to the game. We changed it and the two guys, they came in and did well in the game, and were much better."
Rodgers, though, remains confident that Leicester's quality will begin to tell over the coming weeks as the Club embarks on a busy spell of fixtures in the Premier League, UEFA Europa League and the Carabao Cup. City now have 11 games before the start of 2022.
"This is a brilliant group of players," he said. "An absolutely outstanding group of players. They’ve given this Club so much over this last few years. We’re just going through a little spell, we’re not quite at our level, we’ve not quite got the confidence, and that’s when you need that support even more.
"We know we were beaten by the better team and we just need to regroup again and look to get ready for our next games."
Ricardo Pereira, meanwhile, missed out on Saturday with a hamstring injury.
Asked to provide more detail on the issue, the City manager explained: "He was a bit tight yesterday, so we’ll see what the scan says on that, but it’s disappointing. He’s just never quite got going since he’s been back. He’s had little niggles. We just need to wait and see."