It’s Brendan v Ole in battle for top four
LEICESTER boss Brendan Rodgers believes the pressure is all on Manchester United ahead of their Champions League shootout.
The teams face off at the King Power Stadium tomorrow battling for a Champions League spot.
Leicester are fifth, a point behind United in third and fourthplaced Chelsea ahead of the final round of games.
Victory would return the club to Europe’s top table after a three-year absence but Rodgers expects United to be the ones in the spotlight.
He said: “I think there is a difference where we want to be in the Champions League. We would love to be able to do that but when you are a club like Manchester United or one of those super clubs, there is a need to be in the Champions League for many reasons.
“That is pretty clear. For us, we would want to be in it. We will give everything we can. If we fall short then we have still had a really good season in the first season we have been together.
“When you (United) are at that level of spending and everything else there is a need to be in there and that brings a different level of expectation.”
Opposite number Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wants to clinch that top-four spot in style.
“We’re looking forward to the game, we’ve given ourselves a good chance of being in the Champions League next year but we can’t go into a game thinking about what the outcome can be,” the United boss said.
“We’ve just got to go and perform and perform at a high enough level and standard so we can get a result.
“We want to go there and dominate the game. We wanted to get this position to be able to go to Leicester and having to beat them and we’re not going to change our approach.
“We want to go there and try and win the game.”
A fascinating clash awaits in the East Midlands as United look to get over the line, having faced a gruelling fixture schedule in a truncated period due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Focus and concentration is very, very vital in football,” Solskjaer said. “When you play against quality teams, quality players, one lapse of concentration can hurt you.
“We’re going to go into it with a strong frame of mind. It’s not job done, we have got to this point and we have one more game in this season.
“That’s this season, this is a journey for this team. This is one extra step on the journey for this team, which we’ve come a long way.
“Mentally I think we’ve shown more robustness, resilience, when we’ve lost the first goal in games, for example, but we’ve also shown the heights when everything’s flowing, which you can’t expect every time.”