Brendan Rodgers has hinted that he will field a strong side at Spartak Moscow this afternoon as the pressure grows on Leicester City to get their first win of the Europa League campaign. The City manager is targeting a tally of 10 points for his side to avoid crashing out in the group stage, which means winning three of their remaining four games. With a trip to Serie A leaders Napoli in the final pool match, City’s run of wins really needs to start in the Russian capital, and that need for victories could be reflected in the team selection. So far, Rodgers has made five and then six changes for Europa League games, but wants stability after the excellent result and performance against Manchester United at the weekend.
Brendan Rodgers said: “We will pick a team to win the game, like we always do. We’ve come off a really good performance and we want to have stability in the team and look to continue with that. We have all of our fit players here because it’s a very important game for us. We want to go as far as we possibly can and that’s why this is a big game. Our first game against Napoli we should win, but we took one point. The second game (at Legia Warsaw) we lost, so that makes this a very important game if we want to continue and go far in the competition. If we can win the game, that puts us in a great position with two home games remaining. I’ve always felt that if you can get to 10 points, you won’t be too far away from the top of the group. One team (Legia) already has six points, so all of the others have a bit of work to do, and that includes us. We’ll look forward to that, we’re not frightened of the work or the challenge. We’ll take that on.”
Rodgers’ targeted points tally of 10 has been good enough for teams to reach the knockout stages of the Europa League in all but three cases in the past five years. LASK Linz missed out last year, while AC Milan and Standard Liege failed to qualify with 10 points three seasons ago. Multiple teams with eight points have made it through to the knockout phase in recent years, while Krasnodar picked up only seven points when they progressed in 2016-17.
