Brendan Rodgers
Leicester City have dropped into a competition Brendan Rodgers knows nothing about after a “lack of determination” off the ball led to defeat at Napoli. City have been demoted to the third-tier Europa Conference League after a 3-2 loss at Napoli left them third in their Europa League group. Right now, it’s not a competition Rodgers is clued up on.
Brendan Rodgers said: “I don’t know anything about it, in all fairness. My focus was on winning this group or at the very least finishing second, so without being disrespectful to that, I haven’t looked at that side of that draw or that competition. It’s European football after Christmas. It will be another experience for us. There are some really good teams so when we look at it after we put this to bed, we will look forward to that challenge, but otherwise I haven’t given it too much thought.”
Rodgers could not hide his disappointment that the Europa League campaign was over, but admitted they were not good enough at the back across their fixtures to warrant going through.
Brendan Rodgers added: “Over the course of the six games we have attacked very well but defensively we’ve not been good enough. We’ve conceded 11 goals in six games and that’s nowhere near the level. We’ve seen that tonight, offensively we were very good, creating opportunities, bright, but we lacked a determination in situations off the ball to stop them scoring. That’s been our downfall this evening and over the course of the six games. We should have gone in front with a great move but then gave away a soft goal to go 1-0 behind. We made a mistake to then go 2-0 behind. Here, against a really good side, that can be a real challenge for you. But we showed that resilience and spirit that I say is in the team. We got the first goal and then Kiernan (Dewsbury-Hall) gets a fantastic second goal, and I thought he was excellent throughout the night. We left the pitch in a good place, we talked about at half-time making sure we were compact and tight defensively, and aggressive, and then we know that our football, because our football is good at the moment… But you can just see the confidence draining away when the third goal went in. It was a very basic goal to concede. Then we had the big chance with James (Maddison), (Jamie) Vardy’s header, getting into other really good areas. Offensively you can see the confidence is still there. But you have to defend. That’s the other side of the game which is critical to win games because you can’t score three or four goals every single game.”
