Why Brendan Rodgers lies to protect his Leicester players

Thus allowing the players to play without excessive pressure and focus on putting in decent performance after performance. This is what the East Midlands club’s boss is doing and should be doing. Where the players do not perform, you talk about intensity of the whole side and you do not single anyone out. On the contrary, one should recognise the difficultly of playing multiple games a week, and remove the blame from the athlete.

By bending the truth about Soyuncu having no way of not moving his arms up when running, this tells the player that Rodgers knows the defender is just trying his hardest. And, essentially, the gaffer approves of that passion to defend. Additionally, it helps the supporters focus on poor refereeing rather than attacking their man.

Typically Rodgers is quiet, subdued, and not particularly emotional about results. He keeps a calm demeanour and keeps repeating his mantra of intensity, character, and building up towards consistency. Today, he knew what he had to do: he had to remove the blame from the team and Soyuncu, and he did that well.