Brendan Rodgers
Leicester City are keeping their fingers crossed over James Justin with manager Brendan Rodgers and his medical staff confident the in-form full-back has not suffered a major injury. Midway through the second half of City’s FA Cup fifth-round win over Brighton, won by Kelechi Iheanacho’s added-time header, Justin went down holding his right knee, appearing to jar it as he cleared a high ball. The 22-year-old looked to be welling up as he received treatment and was taken off on a stretcher. However, Rodgers said he does believe the injury is as bad as feared, with Justin even telling him he could have left the field without the aid of a stretcher.
Brendan Rodgers said: “Hopefully it’s not as bad as first seemed. He said he could have walked off. After five minutes in the changing room, it eased up for him. He just heard something in his knee when he landed. It’s a bit early (to diagnose the injury). On inspection, the guys are confident there it’s nothing major. We will see how he is in the morning. Fingers crossed it’s not as bad as it looked.”
The injury looked to be the defining moment of the 90 minutes until Iheanacho popped up with a header late on. The goal sent City through to the quarter-finals and they will find out their opponents on Thursday night.
Brendan Rodgers said: “Everyone was delighted there wasn’t 30 minutes extra time! There weren’t so many chances and both teams defended fairly well but we kept going and kept fighting. Vontae (Daley-Campbell) showed great ability to win the corner, and it was real quick thinking of the two boys (Youri Tielemans and Cengiz Under) and caught them unorganised.It was a great win, with players getting minutes and us getting through to the quarter-finals.”
