Brendan Rodgers on poor Leicester draw: there is no excuse

Brendan Rodgers was left frustrated over the lack of intensity and speed in Leicester City’s play and labeled it as too passive.

The Foxes travelled to the South Coast of England to face Southampton at St. Mary’s Stadium in their bid to qualify for Champions League place. Leicester made the journey after being in a good form recently and attaining some crucial points in tight and important matches.

A win against the Saints at Wembley in not-so-long ago FA Cup Semi-Finals has already given the chance to the team in Blue to create history, when they face Chelsea in the Final, on 15th May. It was Leicester’s fourth match in the past 13 days, the game on Friday also concluded the hectic, but a fruitful run where they had already registered two crucial Premier League wins over West Brom and Crystal Palace.

It was Deja-Vu for Southampton after Jannik Vestergaard was sent off early in the match, committing a rash challenge after losing the ball near his own penalty area. However, the Saints made sure to not repeat the history and defended magnificently. Their cause also aided by the passive and slow movement of the ball by the team from the Midlands.

In second half, James Ward-Prowse scored for the home side after the ball was adjudged to have struck Kelechi Iheanacho’s hand in the penalty box, but the Nigerian made up for his error after his assist was calmly headed by Jonny Evans to equalize on the other end quickly. Apart from couple of saves from Alex McCarthy, Leicester failed to create enough and in the end settled for a draw, to take them clear by 8 points from West Ham in 5th place. Brendan Rodgers in his post-match interview was left frustrated over the lack of intensity and speed in his team’s play and stated it “too passive”.

The Northern Irishman was however not too vocal about his players and stated that the hectic schedule probably affected the swiftness of the play. On being asked whether the red card changed the game for his team and if LCFC should have taken advantage, he replied:

"“There is no excuse. We usually prepare for that situation. The game changed of course but we still didn’t have enough quality over the ball to find that bit of quality.”Via BBC Sport"

Leicester’s boss did seem optimistic though, as he believed that the disappointment of not achieving the target here would increase the appetite for the three points even more, when they will face Newcastle on coming Friday at KPS.