Brendan Rodgers
Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers is not giving up hope of a top-four finish and has told Chelsea and Liverpool they still have tough games to come.
Brendan Rodgers said “I’ve said all along we’ll see where we’re at after 38 games,” Rodgers said. “In the last week, we’ve beaten the Europa League finalists and Champions League finalists, and won the FA Cup. Now we’ll recover and get ready for the the weekend. All we can do is get three points there and see where it takes us. The maturity in the team and how they’ve fought has allowed us to get into this position. We know we can win big games, let’s see if we can do it again. It will be great because we’ve got supporters in. You could sense the difference fans made tonight, so that will make a big difference for us. For us, it’s about ourselves, we could never control what Liverpool or Chelsea has done. If we arrive in the top four, it will be a monumental effort. Every team has a hard game, Liverpool have Burnley and Crystal Palace who are tough teams to play against, Chelsea have to go to Villa, we play Tottenham. We can only focus on ourselves.”
City nearly clinched a point at the death when Ayoze Perez was presented with a gilt-edged opportunity from Ricardo Pereira’s cross, but blazed over. Rodgers did not want to blame the Spaniard, but rather said his team rushed the ball, preventing them from creating more chances of a similar ilk.
Brendan Rodgers said “I said to the players towards the end we needed more patience, we were rushing it in the last 15 minutes, we could have had one or two more like Ayo’s chance if we had done that. But the players have fought until the end. It speaks volumes when you see the reaction of Chelsea afterwards in how important they see the victory. We’re fighting to at that level.”
Leicester City are now the underdogs in the race for a Champions League spot after their 2-1 loss to Chelsea on Tuesday night. A Liverpool win at Burnley on Wednesday sees City fall out of the top four for the first time this season, meaning they need results to go their way on the final day of the campaign, when they play Spurs. Despite the disappointment of the result at Stamford Bridge, secured by Antonio Rudiger and a Jorginho penalty before Kelechi Iheanacho’s reply, Rodgers is still upbeat, and knows his opponents do not have it easy in their battle to finish above City. After Liverpool go to Burnley, they host Crystal Palace in Roy Hodgson’s final game, while Chelsea travel to Aston Villa.
