Rodgers bites back at critics over cancelled Everton game
By Will Kennedy
It is no secret that Leicester City’s squad depth has been decimated over the last two weeks. The Foxes were already dealing with an injury crisis in their defence with the likes of Soyuncu, Pereira, Evans, Fofana, and Justin all out, and then a COVID outbreak at the club hit them to reduce numbers even further.
In their last Premier League game, a heroic 1-0 win over Liverpool, Leicester lost Jamie Vardy to injury – the Foxes top scorer will be out until at least early March. After all that, the delayed African Cup of Nations started which stripped the East Midlander’s of Ndidi, Iheanacho, Amartey and Mendy.
It meant that when the Foxes faced Watford in the FA Cup on Saturday, Leicester only had 8 fit senior outfield players with Daley-Campbell getting a rare start, and young Lewis Brunt making his debut from the start. Meanwhile, aside from Kasper Schmeichel, LCFC’s entire bench was compiled of youngsters who were all awaiting their professional debut with the club.
After beating Watford, the Foxes faced a whole new challenge of facing Everton only three days after, still with only 8 fit senior players. FA and Premier League rules state that every team must have a minimum of 13 fit senior players for a game to go ahead, clearly Leicester couldn’t fulfil this and therefore had a request to postpone the game accepted.
This tie had already been postponed before, with the game, originally set to be played in December, being pushed to January due to the high amount of injuries and COVID cases within the Everton squad. There was no controversy when that originally happened, but with the latest push-back, LCFC have faced a fair bit of criticism.