We must be ready if leaders stumble in title race, says Rodgers
Brendan Rodgers has told his Leicester City players to be “ready to pounce” if Liverpool suffer a title wobble.
Rodgers has made his best start to a Premier League season after guiding Leicester to second place.
Leicester have five more points at this stage than Liverpool had in the 2013-14 season, when Rodgers was in charge at Anfield, and have secured a club record by winning eight top-flight games in a row.
But Liverpool remain the runaway leaders, with 15 victories from 16 matches, and Rodgers admitted: “Liverpool have got everything there, they are eight points clear and have been consistently outstanding over the last couple of seasons. They’ve lost one league game in 18 months [against Manchester City in January this year].
“Every other team has got to try and be close enough that if anything happens, you’re ready to pounce. But until that [point], you’ve got to focus on your own game and look to keep developing.
“The pressure will be put on you from various sides, but you have to control it and make sure the players don’t think too much about winning, but performing. We know that we can perform well and have a good chance of getting results.”
Leicester face Liverpool at home on Boxing Day, but Rodgers insists the Christmas period is not makeor-break. His team face Norwich today and then play five games in less than three weeks, including a trip to Manchester City.
“People talk about ‘make or break’ around this time, but it’s not really,” he said. “You may lose some games, or even win the games, but let’s see where we are with 10 games to go.”