Brendan Rodgers has conceded that he could lose his job as Leicester City manager following their thrashing by Tottenham on Saturday afternoon, while James Maddison has urged his team-mates to take responsibility for the loss.
Leicester were beaten 6-2 by Spurs as Son Heung-min came off the substitutes’ bench to score a 14-minute hat-trick which condemned the visiting side to a sixth defeat in seven Premier League matches. The Foxes are rock bottom of the table having taken just a point so far.
Youri Tielemans’ penalty and James Maddison’s inventive finish saw them go in at half-time at 2-2, after headers from Harry Kane and Eric Dier, before Tottenham took control. Rodrigo Bentancur punished a Wilfred Ndidi mistake to make it 3-2 before Son’s stunning impact wrapped up the points for Antonio Conte’s side.
Having lost 5-2 to Brighton in their last game, Leicester have now conceded 22 goals this season, which is the most by any side in Premier League history after seven games. Rodgers had a sombre tone in his post-match interview with Sky Sports as he assessed the situation.
Asked whether the result ramped up the pressure, he replied: “Very much so, it does. I come in every day and do my work and I can see the players playing with the confidence, however, you’ve got to win games, so I totally understand that. I understand the frustrations of supporters and whatever. I can’t hide from that, it’s my responsibility, the scores.”
Rodgers was then asked whether he retained the support of Leicester’s owners, who hired him back in February 2019. “Listen, whatever happens I’ll have a huge amount of respect for them (the owners) because they’ve given me a huge amount of support since I’ve been here,” he said.
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“I understand the game, I understand football. Today, the scoreline, I don’t think reflected the game but the bottom line is we’ve had a heavy defeat and we should have been better. For me, they’ve given me brilliant support and whatever happens for me here at Leicester – whether I stay or whether I continue to fight on – I’ll always respect them.”
Maddison believes that Leicester’s players need to shoulder some of the responsibility for their dreadful start to the season and revealed that the players had been hurt by the rumours swirling around Rodgers’ future.
“It’s a collective, it’s not the manager,” he said. “We’re the 11 out there. It’s painful and it hurts when you see a manager who you’ve got a lot of respect for and you’ve built up a relationship with get so much heat and so much negativity when ultimately we’re the players that have to do the business and we haven’t been of late. That hurts us.”
Like Rodgers, Maddison felt the scoreline was not a fair representation of how the match went, with Hugo Lloris making some vital stops for Spurs. “Obviously people will see the scoreline, 6-2, and think ‘wow, Leicester got battered again’, but I really don’t think that was the case,” he said.
“I thought first half we were outstanding. We worked so hard this week on the training pitch for this game because we know we have to produce performances and results because we haven’t been of late. We put so much into the game and first half and it seemed like the Leicester side and the Brendan Rodgers side we’ve created over the past few years.
Leicester now head into the international break before facing Nottingham Forest at the King Power Stadium on October 3.
