Yes, Foxes are suffering a blip but hounding Rodgers would be a huge error

LEICESTER are in an unusual position, lying mid-table in the Premier League.

Read – and digest – that sentence again. Why is it unusual?

For the past two years, Brendan Rodgers has overseen an assault on the Champions League by the east Midlands outfit.

And twice they have lost out on a top-four spot on the final day.

You can re-read that sentence too, if you like.

Leicester City? Top four, really? Up there with Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool?

The Foxes have no right to be competing at that level.

Yet they are. Or rather, have been. Yes, they have spent money in the transfer market.

Mainly because the amount of players who have been cherry-picked from the King Power Stadium over the past few years is staggering. Whether they’ve gone on to better themselves is another question – financially, of course they have – but the sales of Harry Maguire, Ben Chilwell, Riyad Mahrez, N’golo Kante and Danny Drinkwater have generated more than £250million.

And yet their replacements have kept the Foxes challenging. Or, alternatively, their manager has.

There can be no question

Rodgers took over a squad that under-performed for

Claude Puel.

The replacements for those players listed above were gathered at considerable cost – but no more than Arsenal spent in the last window.

But after a late midweek collapse against Tottenham Rodgers suddenly isn’t flavour of the month any more. People need to wake up and smell those roses.

Unfortunately, the background to this drop-off in form is a little less than romantic – it’s been down to a number of issues, but mainly a horrific run of injuries.

Rodgers’ first-choice defensive pairing – Wesley Fofana (left) and Jonny Evans – haven’t played together. James Justin, on the fringes of an England callup, suffered a knee ligament injury.

You can go through the list – Jamie Vardy is sidelined with a hamstring tear – it reached the point against Watford in the FA Cup where there were 10 academy graduates listed to play.

What I admire about Leicester’s manager is his refusal to belly-ache.

He’s got on with it, despite a fixture list that could have seen the club play 10 times in six weeks before Christmas. He works to a plan and while there have been obvious defensive issues, his teams always look like they have a goal in them.

And they go hard at every competition. There’s never any suggestion that they are not taking the FA Cup seriously. Rodgers won the thing – for that alone he deserves a statue – and showed he meant business from the off in the third-round tie at Stoke when he named the best XI he could.

Sometimes, it’s all too easy to overlook what you have as a fan.

As Graham Potter’s Brighton side come to the King Power today the Seagulls chief is the new star rising in the managerial sky.

But Rodgers proved himself at Celtic to be a class act. He’s doing likewise at Leicester City.

This has been just a blip. The bigger picture is one of success. And people would do well to give this latest hiccup some perspective.