WE’LL BE UP FOR THE CUP
RODGERS HAS NO DOUBTS PLAYERS WILL BOUNCE BACK AT WEMBLEY
LEICESTER City manager Brendan Rodgers is banking on his players’ proven bouncebackability to shake off the events of the past few days and be in the right frame of mind for this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final against Southampton, writes Jordan Blackwell.
It is City’s first appearance in the competition’s final four for 39 years, and preparations for the trip to Wembley come amid a potentially damaging defeat to top-four rivals West Ham, and the controversy surrounding a group of players who were left at home for that loss after breaking Covid protocols.
Ayoze Perez, James Maddison and Hamza Choudhury were all missing from the squad at the London Stadium but are back in contention to try to help City take one more step towards their long-awaited dream of lifting the FA Cup.
If City are to prevail against the Saints, it may well depend on putting the West Ham game and the players’ transgressions behind them.
Rodgers is confident they can do that. They head to Wembley after back-to-back defeats, to Manchester City and the Hammers, but City have never lost three in a row under their current manager.
Asked if it would be difficult to pick the team up,
Rodgers replied: “Not at all. If you see how we’ve responded in the few years I’ve been here…
“It’s disappointing to lose, it’s more disappointing to perform how we’ve performed. However, after 24 hours, we’ll get back on track again.
“We’ve got a really exciting week ahead of us, we’re preparing to go to Wembley to play in a semi-final. After disappointment, you have to respond, and that’s the mentality we have to show.”
That is not to say Rodgers will be using the final half-hour of Sunday’s game as evidence his team are already bouncing back.
Kelechi Iheanacho scored twice and then Wesley Fofana nearly nicked an unlikely point for City, heading just wide with the final touch of the game.
However, Rodgers said it was easy for his team in the game’s closing stages because they were playing without pressure.
“We lost three poor goals and I’ll analyse that and look at that as a really disappointing aspect of our game,” he said.
“We were much better for the final 30 minutes, the movement was freer, but when you’re 3-0 down, you can always play with no pressure, but that’s not really what we want to see. We needed that at 0-0, and we didn’t get it.
“We take our medicine, we move on, it’s a great week ahead now preparing for a semi-final, and we’ll keep fighting.”