RODGERS: SLACKERS MUST TAKE THE FLAK

LEICESTER boss Brendan Rodgers insists his players have no issue with the public criticism of them and said: It’s elite sport it’s not always rosy in the garden.

Rodgers was critical of his team after they surrendered a lead to draw 2-2 with Brighton last weekend (Wout Faes and Harvey Barnes react to equaliser, below).

It left them just a point above the

Premier League drop zone and the

Northern Irishman pulled no punches in his assessment of how they use the ball.

He said last week: “There’s a number of our players who don’t care enough when they have it. They’re happy to give it away, or not bothered enough to give it away.” But, speaking ahead of today’s FA Cup clash at Walsall, Rodgers was adamant there is nothing he says in public that he has not already told his team face-to-face.

The Foxes boss, set to give a debut to new signing Victor Kristiansen, said:

“The players know I’m with them. They and I have been here long enough – and they’ve improved their contracts and lives.

“Sometimes you have to be harsh to be clear. I demand that every single day in training they come in to improve.

“It’s not a case where I say that and the players are flat and lack confidence. It’s a demand, a standard. “We’re at the elite level of sport. It’s not all rosy in the garden all the time.

“But they won’t read anything they don’t hear from me. It’s something I constantly talk about. It’s not a strategy, nothing clever. I’m not doing it so someone else can hear. It was just my feeling of where the game was

at. “I’m not that clever to be strategically positioning things. I don’t have to get the players to read something - I can tell them to their face.” Rodgers (above) is well aware of opposite number Michael Flynn’s giant-killing pedigree, with the Foxes then managed by Claude Puel - among his victims when boss of Newport.

He added: “Michael did a great job at Newport. His team will be very competitive.

“Like all teams playing against Premier League teams they will want to create a shock.

“We’ve tried to make every game a big game since I’ve been here, whether it’s Premier League, European or a cup game against lowerleague opposition.”