06 February 2021

Brendan Rodgers stays tight-lipped over Leicester’s Champions League hopes

06 February 2021

Boss Brendan Rodgers remained tight-lipped over Leicester’s Champions League hopes but warned his squad not to drop their standards.

The Foxes are third in the Premier League and go to Wolves on Sunday.

They could move five points clear of fourth-placed Liverpool, who host Manchester City at Anfield shortly after Leicester’s Molineux clash, as they look to tighten their grip on a Champions League spot.

Rodgers’ side slipped out of the top four on the final day of last season and he insisted they must remain grounded.

He said: “It is important we continue on this path, the consistency is great but we must not sit back and pat ourselves on the back. I always say the pat on the back is only a few inches away from a slap on the backside.

“We do our talking on the field, we like to perform and come in every day to work and work well.

“Liverpool and Manchester City are two of the greatest teams to be involved in the whole history of the Premier League. Naturally people are going to talk about them.

“We’ll see where we finish up. There are 16 games to go, a long way to go. Let’s see where we finish and then we’ll talk about it then.”

The Foxes travel to a Wolves side who bagged a first win in nine games when they beat Arsenal 2-1 on Tuesday.

The hosts sit 14th having battled inconsistency this season after selling Matt Doherty and Diogo Jota to Tottenham and Liverpool respectively in the summer before losing Raul Jimenez to a fractured skull in November.

Rodgers said: “Since Nuno (Espirito Santo) has gone in there he has done an absolutely brilliant job. They played a very specific way and in their first couple of seasons back they were up there challenging.

“Now you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to look at it. They have lost Jota, Jimenez and Doherty and they were key players for them.

“It’s very difficult to play to the level you have consistently when you lose that quality of player. It takes time to adapt to that.

“Nuno has tried to evolve the team, they have played a clear system for three years and now, into this season, he is looking to evolve that. It doesn’t take away the quality of him as a manager.

“It takes time for the team to grow again in a different way.”

The best videos delivered daily

Watch the stories that matter, right from your inbox