Leicester’s top 4 EPL expectations need to be managed well
By Damon Carter
With all the injuries and recent bad results, Leicester City’s top 4 Premier League expectations need to be managed well by Brendan Rodgers.
The Foxes boss Rodgers rarely talks up any expectation levels regarding his Champions League goals to the media. Whether he does privately to the players remains to be seen. But we as supporters can’t help but dream of a return to the glory days of 2017 when Leicester achieved a Champions League quarter final place.
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At the start of this season I had no expectation that top four would be realistic. Given the way the club finished 2019/2020, as well as having lost Ben Chilwell. In addition to not recruiting a great deal of players, it would seem odd to believe UEL qualification was expected of the squad. But as the season developed we’ve been swept along in a tidal wave of mostly positive results that have seen the team not leave highest places all campaign. Not many of us could have predicted how poor Liverpool, Chelsea or even Arsenal and Spurs would be in this strangest of seasons.
Nevertheless, we cannot and should not compare this season to last. Rodgers has managed the injury situation from the start of 2020/21 admirably, and to keep the club fighting at the top of the league has been extraordinary. So let’s not kid ourselves, Leicester City have no divine right to being a top four club. Although the potential looming of a drop down the table does seem just like last season (with the word ‘bottlers‘ too often used) it really isn’t the same at all.
Different for Leicester City this term
In the previous term, there was more rest between games with trips to Europe not on the agenda. There were nowhere near the amount of long term injuries that the gaffer has had to battle. Most tellingly the gap from outside the top four last year seemed insurmountable. Right now Leicester are only five points clear of Chelsea in fifth place, with Liverpool close behind.
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Fans of the Reds are preparing themselves for the potential of no Champions League football due to their own issues. If it’s a good enough excuse for Liverpool – then it should be good enough for the Foxes. If Rodgers can still finish in the top 4 at the end of the season he will have achieved something that should get him the manager of the year award.