- Leicester City drew 2-2 with Brentford at King Power Stadium on Sunday
- The Foxes were two goals ahead in their opening Premier League fixture of 2022/23
- Manager Brendan Rodgers admits the 'frustration' but pointed to 'wonderful' football earlier on
- He also addresses Danny Ward's first game as the Club's No.1 and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall's goal
Timothy Castagne's header, from a corner, put City ahead on Filbert Way, before a screamer from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall early on in the second half. Ivan Toney and Josh Dasilva, though, rescued a point for the visiting Bees to deny Leicester a third success opening-day success.
Leicester were dominant for the opening hour on Sunday, displaying an attractive brand of football in the early-season sunshine, but were left disappointed at the full-time whistle. Speaking afterwards, Rodgers did not deny that frustration, but was able to highlight pleasing areas of the performance.
"It’s frustrating not to win, especially after being 2-0 up," the Northern Irishman told LCFC TV. "I thought, for the first hour of the game, we were excellent. It was everything we want. The pressing was really good, the concentration was good, and some of the quality of our football was excellent.
"It was a fantastic strike [from Dewsbury-Hall], a really, really good goal. It put us in a really strong position. At 2-0, we can keep the ball then, but we didn’t quite manage to do that well enough.
"We’re frustrated with the two goals, in particular the first one. There’s an organisation template for us on throw-ins and we didn’t quite deliver that and, then all of a sudden, the space opened up and the get the goal.
"At 2-1, the momentum of the game changed a little bit and we then didn’t keep the ball well enough. That was the frustration, but there was lots of really good moments in the game for us and two really good goals.
"Brentford are a team that really test you at set-pieces and we were strong in that moment – and scored from one. Both elements, we looked at. It’s an area which, I said at the end of last season, that we needed to be better in – both defending and attacking.
"We scored one and defended very well against a team that are renowned for doing very well from set-pieces. There were lots of really positive items, but when you’re 2-0 up and you draw, of course that’s frustrating. If you look at the first hour, the crowd were really happy with the team.
"We performed well, but of course, they can feel deflated when we draw the game two-each. If we focus on the real positives of the game, there was some wonderful football, we defended strongly and we just made a couple of mistakes, which we were punished for against a team who were throwing everything at the game. We wanted three points but we’ll take a point and we’ll look onto our next game now."
Rodgers also pointed to the fact that City were forced into altering their game plan for the visit of Brentford, after injuries for Ricardo Pereira and Harvey Barnes. Ricardo is likely to be out for up to six months with an Achilles injury, although Barnes' absence, with a knee complaint is just 'weeks.
"That’s where the level is so important in concentration," he added, discussing Leicester's second-half performance. "You’ve got to be fully concentrated in every moment and we lost that. It was probably a little bit of tiredness which kicked in during those last 15 minutes.
"It’s the first game of the season and it was very hot for the players on the field, but listen, there was so many good moments in that game. I feel for the players. Not only that… we’ve worked for five weeks on a way of working and playing and we had two injuries in our game against Sevilla which meant we had to then look at a different structure, but the players coped with that. They adapted to that very, very well.
"I’m frustrated for them, because they deserved it, but we’ll learn going forward."
Danny Ward, on the other hand, was making his home Premier League debut for the Club, on his first outing as Leicester's No.1.
"I said before, I think he’s a no.1 goalkeeper and he showed that," Rodgers added. "His feet were good and he made saves, came for crosses, and I was delighted for him."