Brendan Rodgers
Jannik Vestergaard showed why he will be a great acquisition for Leicester City on his full debut for the club, manager Brendan Rodgers said. Vestergaard started for the first time since his £15m summer switch from Southampton in City’s 1-0 loss to Manchester City on Saturday. The Dane showed off excellent defensive positioning to keep the champions out, Bernardo Silva scoring the winner just after the City centre-back was substituted with fatigue. Rodgers believes he will be a big boost for City in both boxes this campaign.
Brendan Rodgers said: “I’m delighted with Jannik. He gives us that great presence in the box when we defend and you see him, he gets his head on to a lot of things when we’re attacking as well. He got some good blocks in and reads the game so well. Then he has that calmness when we have the ball. I was delighted with him. The plan was to get him to 60 minutes and when he starts to fatigue then bring Jonny in. I’m delighted with both but really pleased for Jannik in terms of his first game in and I think you can see over the course of the season he’ll do great for us.”
Rodgers felt his side were unfortunate not to walk away with something from the game, as while the visitors had the majority of the chances, City created a few clear-cut openings. Harvey Barnes was denied by Ederson in the first half, then hit the bar in the second, while Jamie Vardy had a goal ruled out for offside, with Ademola Lookman seeing a shot saved late on by Man City’s Brazilian goalkeeper. Ederson nearly wasn’t able to play because of the five-day ban initially invoked by the Brazilian FA, but was cleared on Saturday morning and was a difference maker at the King Power Stadium.
Brendan Rodgers said: “I feel most disappointed for the players because I felt we deserved something from the game with the opportunities we had. What’s so important against Man City is you stay in the game and from the first whistle to the end, we were right in there against a world-class team. I felt we were unfortunate that we didn’t take something from it.”
