Brendan Rodgers
Brendan Rodgers is “worried” after his Leicester City side were outplayed by Championship opposition in their FA Cup elimination. Rodgers watched on as City were second-best against Blackburn, who should have scored more than the two goals they got to secure their place in the last eight of the competitions. Tyrhys Dolan and Sammie Szmodics profited from two of countless City mistakes at the back, with Rodgers’ men not turning up until the final 25 minutes of the game. Rodgers had no complaints over the result. He said his team “thoroughly deserved” to lose and that he was concerned that a side from the second tier had managed to dominate his team on home soil.
Brendan Rodgers said: “Congratulations to Blackburn. They were the better team. We presented them with a couple of goals, we gave the ball away cheaply for the first. Likewise with the second. The player gets through the middle of our defence far too easily. Then you’re chasing it. At 2-0, it’s an easy scoreline to go freely in. We showed spirit and a drive then but you have to show that when it’s 0-0 and impose your game. We weren’t able to do that sadly. It’s just consistency and mentality and ambition to succeed. That’s been too up and down for us. It doesn’t help when you consistently present opportunities to teams. I’m really disappointed for the supporters. It’s been a real challenge for them this season. The FA Cup was an opportunity to get to a quarter-final, against a Championship team at home, but they were a lot better than us, and we have to be worried about that.”
Ahead of the game, Rodgers said the FA Cup was more important this season because of his team’s position in the Premier League. The competition was City’s only hope of glory this term, with European qualification out of the question.
Brendan Rodgers said: “We tried to relay that. The game for us should have been simple in terms of the idea. The idea was, whenever we didn’t have the ball, to be hungry to get it back. When you do have it, look after it and let’s see if we can play at speed to create opportunities. Then, find that purpose. Our purpose was to get through to the quarter-final and give everything we can. We’ve smelled it before and we know what it means. But sadly we didn’t have the quality and that grit when defending to win the game. We thoroughly deserved to lose the game.”
