Brendan Rodgers says Leicester are in ‘a good position’ after Slavia stalemate - 7M sport

Brendan Rodgers says Leicester are in ‘a good position’ after Slavia stalemate



Posted Friday, February 19, 2021 by PA

Brendan Rodgers says Leicester are in ‘a good position’ after Slavia stalemate

Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers vowed his side will rediscover their killer instinct after their Europa League stalemate at Slavia Prague.

The Foxes were forced to settle for a scrappy 0-0 draw in the Czech Republic in the first leg of their last-32 tie on Thursday.

Jamie Vardy touched the ball just 13 times as the visitors struggled to create chances.

They host the Czech champions at the King Power Stadium in next week’s second leg and will be favourites to reach the last 16.

Rodgers has never progressed past this stage of the competition, after four previous attempts with Liverpool and Celtic, but insisted the Foxes will be on the front foot.

“We’re in a good position and now we can really attack the second leg at home,” he said.

“It’s set up really well for us. You want to go away and keep a clean sheet, if you can score even better.

“In the Europa League we have been solid away from home and at home we have played really well and scored, hopefully that’ll be the case next week.

“When you come away it’s important to defend well. You have to stay strong, be aggressive, our spirit was good, we have kept a clean sheet and we’ll look to the second leg.

“There weren’t many chances in the game, the pitch was difficult, but I was really pleased with the spirit of the team.

“They score on average three goals a game and we were defensively solid.”

In a game of few chances, Harvey Barnes had a close-range effort saved by Slavia goalkeeper Ondrej Kolar while Nico Stanciu’s second-half drive was turned over by Kasper Schmeichel.

Vardy was replaced by Kelechi Iheanacho with 27 minutes left but Iheanacho was immediately booked when he caught Jakub Hromada and will miss the second leg.

“They (the officials) were disappointing to say the least. It wasn’t great but that’s the experience of Europe,” added Rodgers.

The hosts have now lost just once in their last 19 games and boss Jindrich Trpisovsky was satisfied with Slavia’s performance.

He said: “Leicester were very strong and had the most powerful line-up they could have. When they were on the ball it was unpleasant for our team but our defence was very strong.

“It went as expected, we could have limited the number of opportunities but our performance in the second half was good. If we had kept the performance at this level it could have been even better.

“It’s a great result. But next week Leicester will have an advantage.”

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