TURN THE NOISE UP!

THE “incredible atmosphere” Brendan Rodgers is expecting Leicester City supporters to produce will play an important role in earning the team a first leg advantage in their historic semi-final against Roma, writes Jordan Blackwell.

The King Power Stadium will be packed tonight for what is the club’s first last four match in a European competition.

City have proven they can win away, as they did in the last round at PSV Eindhoven, but know that taking a lead to the Stadio Olimpico next week will set them up well for reaching the final.

Rodgers has called for the crowd to bring the noise that his side can feed off – and his players will then respond with an intense performance.

“You would like to have a good performance to take a result there, which is important,” Rodgers said.

“It should be an incredible atmosphere so we’ll look forward to that. The crowd can really help us bring our tempo and football to the game and then we’ll see where we’re at.

“It’s so important. The fans can really get you over the line in games.

“That’s up to us. We have to generate that intensity, that tempo, that energy, and then the crowd will feed off it.

“Hopefully, that combination will see us get a good start in the first leg.”

With the away goal rule scrapped, a 0-0 scoreline in the first leg is now quite enticing for a travelling side, and PSV certainly played on that, sitting deeper than Rodgers had initially expected.

Despite that, and Jose Mourinho’s reputation as a pragmatic, defensive manager, Rodgers is not necessarily expecting a repeat.

He said: “I watched their game against Napoli and they were away from home and they wanted to press the game and wanted to be aggressive. They weren’t sitting back.

“To get to the final, we will have to work really hard, like we did in the other games against Rennes and PSV. They have fantastic players, so we will have to be at our best to reach the final.”