Why Brendan Rodgers lies to protect his Leicester players

Leicester City yielded a 2-0 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. Following the game, Brendan Rodgers strategically lied in order to protect Caglar Soyuncu.

The Arsenal fixture was one of those days. A team which featured Papy Mendy and the apparently second XI member, Kelechi Iheanacho starting was clearly chosen to prioritise the Rennes second leg fixture in the Conference League.

It was a loss which saw controversial decision after controversial decision, and mistakes from referees constantly. However, not every decision was incorrect. Even the worst officials will get obvious ones, correct as much as I hate to admit that. So, here is what happened during the match, what the Northern Irish gaffer said, and why he said it.

Leicester City’s bad day

Rodgers will feel his King Power side met expectations before they went to face an in-form Gunners team who are gunning for Champions League now they have no European football. With nothing else but the league to play for, it would always be challenging for the Foxes.

A loss was expected by many, but losing in a mediocre way was not forecasted. According to Understat, the London Reds accumulated 2.94 in expected goals, where the Foxes created 0.55 in xG.

Of course, 0.75 of their xG is from a penalty, but still that is over two goals they were expected to score. Additionally, it was only thanks to Kasper Schmeichel’s heroism that Rodgers’ side had not already conceded at least two more goals before the dreadful situation leading up to Arsenal’s penalty.

LCFC’s Turkish defender put his arms high in the sky before realising where the ball was headed, in his mad dash to prevent a goal – where Luke Thomas was waiting to prevent it anyway – ‘Cags’ seemed to rush his way into a blocking position. Directly thereafter he realised he would handle the ball and tried to pull his hand away. The ball barely touched him yet there was contact upon replay; this gives the Video Assistant Referee no choice but to award or refer to the ref.

What Rodgers said and the truth

Any raised arms in the box where the player is not already in that position before the ball is kicked straight at them is a stonewall penalty and potential red card if they are judged to have blocked a goal. Luckily, Soyuncu did not block a goal as the English left back was there.

However, Cags still touched the ball with raised limbs. In that moment, it is merely that he did not realise where it was headed and was likely trying to throw some weight behind a swift move to block. Alas, it was too late when he noticed the ball was travelling towards his hand. A dismissal would have cost Leicester further as they would have lost the CB for three domestic matches.

The boss made some interesting comments regarding the officials post-match, as per BBC Sport Leicester:

"“they get so many wrong now. I’m not sure what Cags can do. He can’t move with his arms down.”"

I completely agree with the Foxes gaffer that referees are getting so many of the big decisions wrong, although pointing to this particular penalty incident is perhaps not the wisest battle. However, our boss has a very good reason for doing so, and I completely agree with Rodgers making positive comments.

Immediately afterwards the Northern Irishman stated the real reason for why Leicester City struggled during that match – despite the obvious team selection determination.

"“The players gave everything but at that point, especially having played midweek, it was difficult for us.”"

Leicester had already played earlier in the week against a tough Rennes side and were convincing victors in that clash. Mentally and physically the Gunners were fresh – and the Foxes were not. Furthermore, the King Power side struggled to have the same intensity levels. Rodgers’ small mistruth about Soyuncu having no choice was not a comment directed at the referees, and nor was it directed at the media or critics. It was directed at us, the fans.

Why Rodgers should lie

The first rule of man management in football is for the head coach to shoulder the burden and blame.

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.