Rodgers on red alert over risk of quarantine
CITY BOSS WORRIED ABOUT HIS PLAYERS GOING TO COUNTRIES WITH HIGH COVID RATES
LEICESTER City are hoping no more countries are added to the government’s red list of Covid-risk locations as they try to ensure their international players are not forced to quarantine on their return to the UK.
City duo Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho have been named in Nigeria’s squad for the international break at the end of the month, and more of the club’s stars are expected to be called up by their nations over the next week or so.
Currently, anybody travelling to a red-list country – a nation where the government is concerned by the rate or nature of the coronavirus infection – must quarantine for 10 days on their return. This poses problems for Premier League players, but as things stand, no City players will be affected.
Neither Nigeria nor Benin, where the Super Eagles play an away Africa Cup of Nations qualifier, are on the red list, so Ndidi and Iheanacho will be unaffected.
A recall to the Ghana squad for Saturday’s hero Daniel Amartey would have been an issue, with the Black Stars travelling to red-list South Africa for an AFCON qualifier, but the country’s coach has named only locally-based players in his squad, so the City defender will stay at home.
Portugal are also on the red list, but to avoid any problems their home World Cup qualifier against Azerbaijan is being played in Turin, Italy, so if Ricardo Pereira gets his first call-up since his injury, there will not be a problem for him either.
On the subject of internationals, Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers said last week: “I think it will be ensuring that no player who goes away on international duty comes back and cannot play. That’s the ideal, otherwise there would be an issue for all of the clubs.
“In this season of all seasons, you can’t be expecting at such an important time of the season to be losing a player or players to international duty, for them to come back and have to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days. That cannot happen.
“I think there’ll be protocols in place to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“We’re anticipating the players that will be called up to international duty, and it doesn’t look too bad in terms of players going to countries on the red list.
“We’ll see over the course of the next week, it should become much clearer. But ultimately, no player should go away and not be able to come back and play, otherwise there will be lots of issues.”
Other players that could be representing their countries are Kasper Schmeichel (Denmark), Danny Ward (Wales), Timothy Castagne and Youri Tielemans (Belgium), Caglar Soyuncu (Turkey), and Jonny Evans (Northern Ireland).
Meanwhile, Wesley Fofana (France), Sidnei Tavares (Portugal), and Luke Thomas and Vontae Daley-Campbell (England) are all in contention to play for their nation’s Under-21 teams at the European Championships in Hungary and Slovenia.
LEICESTER City are finally getting a week off, but there won’t be time to put their feet up for too long.
For the first time in eight weeks, City do not have a midweek fixture to prepare for, with Brendan Rodgers and his weary players afforded eight days between their victory at Brighton and this weekend’s game against bottom of the table Sheffield United.
But while part of the week will be used to get energy back into the legs of his players, Rodgers also said he would be using the time to drill home the club’s tactical ideas, something he has been unable to do with limited time on the training field.
However, there shouldn’t be too many tweaks or instructions the boss needs to make, with his team coping fairly well with the busy recent schedule, especially considering their injury list.
The two-games-a-week run has covered 15 matches and in those, City won six, drew three, and lost just two of their Premier League fixtures, while winning both of their FA Cup ties to reach the quarter-finals.
The only disappointment came in their shock Europa League exit at the hands of Slavia Prague.
“It’s two-fold,” Rodgers said when asked about the benefits of having a full week to prepare to take on the Blades.
“We can recover the players a little bit more, because it’s been game, recovery, game. But we can also get some good training in as well.
“We’ve been very limited in the training, and in particular the tactical training we can do. So that’s going to give us the opportunity to do that, and reinforce a lot of our principles of our work.
“It’s going to be big for us over the next couple of weeks that we have that time and ability to coach and recover the players.
“I can’t remember the last free week we’ve had.
“It’s an important win (against Brighton), and we can now reflect. We’ll see who can come back next week, which will really help.
“There are 10 games to go, but the next one is the most important.”
City are hoping to welcome back Jonny Evans and Ayoze Perez to the matchday squad when they take on the Blades on Sunday.
Both players were injured last month but Rodgers is predicting that after training this week, they will be fit to play some part at the King Power Stadium.
Dennis Praet could also make his return to training, but after two months out with a hamstring problem, he will be eased back in.