- Leicester City defeated 1-0 by Fulham in the Premier League
- Aleksandar Mitrović scored the only goal at King Power Stadium
- Brendan Rodgers spoke to LCFC TV following the game
- The manager felt a poor opening to proceedings made the difference
The Foxes’ first Premier League fixture of 2023 did not go as planned as Aleksandar Mitrović’s 17th-minute strike settled the contest, keeping Leicester 13th in the standings with 17 points from 18 games.
Speaking to LCFC TV in his post-match interview, Rodgers gave his account of proceedings on Filbert Way, lamenting the injuries suffered by Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall - during the warm-up - and Boubakary Soumaré - just minutes into the game.
“You have to be consistent in how you start the game,” the Northern Irishman admitted.
“The injuries in the warm-up and the first few minutes rocked us a little bit and played a little part. We had to make quick changes and obviously that disrupted the balance of the team right before kick-off and then early on within the game.
“Still, we have to be better. It’s from us giving the ball away in the middle of the field. We conceded from a disappointing position where we had control of the ball and we give it away and then didn’t defend the cross, so that was a bad start for us.
“It becomes a different pressing game for different players in different positions and it took us five or 10 minutes within the game to adjust to that because your planning and working is based around a different pressing structure.”
The end result came in spite of a host of second-half opportunities for the home side, but Rodgers acknowledged that those chances need to be taken, as they also needed to against Liverpool four days earlier, to take something from the game.
“I think the performance, after the first 20 minutes, was good,” he continued. “We create opportunities and we looked very dangerous. We had clear opportunities to score and unfortunately didn’t take them.
“The reaction of the players was very good. They stayed committed, they fought, they kept their patience and their ‘keeper has made a couple of great saves. Ayo (Ayoze Pérez) had an opportunity in the first half, it was a really good chance. And then we got Barnesy (Harvey Barnes) in one-on-one. We had opportunities to take something from the game.
“What was better was that at least we created opportunities. I’ve been a bit critical of our last pass because we get into good areas and then we don’t make the pass that creates the chance when we’re in a good area, so that was a little bit better tonight.”
City have suffered three straight league defeats since the break, but City’s manager does not question the players’ fighting spirit. He also provided updates on the two players to pick up injuries on Filbert Way.
The 49-year-old explained: “We’re here to win and we always want to win. It’s disappointing, but I think performance-wise tonight, we should have got something from the game. However, we didn’t, so we’ve got to recover now.
“We’ve got a couple of exciting cup games. We need to see how the injury list looks and go from there. Bouba (Boubakary Soumaré) just twisted on the pitch and felt his hamstring. Kiernan [Dewsbury-Hall] was from a shot in the warm-up. We’ll just have to see how that goes in the next 24 hours.
“This group of players are giving everything. It’s a very small squad and within injuries in it, it makes it even smaller. But for us, we’ll do what we did in the early part of the season when it wasn’t going so well - stay together, concentration well, work and look to turn it around.”