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Brendan Rodgers says Jamie Vardy is ‘still as quick as ever’ and considers the striker to be one of the world’s best
Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers joined The Football Show to discuss Jamie Vardy, James Maddison and being a manager under lockdown.
It has been over a month since football was suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak, with a decision yet to be made on how the 2019/20 season will be concluded.
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For Leicester, they are on the cusp of a return to the Champions League – currently in third place – and Rodgers discussed this and much more in his appearance on The Football Show with Jamie Carragher, Gary Neville and Kelly Cates.
Read on to hear more from the Leicester manager…
‘Vardy is up there with the elite strikers’
Before I came in, I was watching him from afar and seeing him maintain that real quality that he has as a goalscorer and I was really looking forward to working with him when I arrived. I was seeing the quality in the games, but it was going to be interesting to see how he was on a day-to-day basis.
But he is right up there with the elite strikers in world football, how he threatens the line and his explosive speed over a short distance is absolutely phenomenal. He is very focused, he is in his early 30s now but he’s still as quick as ever. He has an appetite for the game and he’s got that old school mentality where he wants to fight, he wants to run and his whole attitude to the game has been absolutely brilliant since I came in. He’s a natural goalscorer, if you get the service to him, he will finish.
‘Maddison has a big player personality’
1:43 Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers says James Maddison has ‘the personality of a big player’ and is always striving to improve his game
He’s got a self-belief, but I have to say, he is a wonderful boy. He’s got the personality of a big player, he has that belief. I was interested to be able to work with James, I’d seen him from afar as a young player and I’d seen his move from Norwich to Leicester so I was keen to see how he would work close up.
But this is a boy who loves football. He thinks about the game, he watches the game, he just loves it and he wants to be better. He’s been a joy to work with and it’s a joy to see him constantly improving, but there’s no doubt his personality is a big part of what he is.
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He’s a super professional, how he prepares himself every single day and what’s important as well, with players like that, is you don’t want to kill their joy and their spirit. They have to toe the line in terms of the team but you don’t want to take away that individuality, that personality and that quality because that’s what makes up a fantastic team.
‘We want to end in the Champions League places’
We’re in the position [third in the Premier League] on merit. I think the players have done fantastically well this season to get into that position and our wish is that we can hopefully have the chance to finish it off, everything being well and the safety being paramount for everyone. We’ve been on a great journey as a team over the last year and our ambition was to earn a European place, which we knew was always going to be a big challenge.
Someone showed us a few weeks ago that over the period of the last decade or so, the 35 of the 36 Champions League positions [from the Premier League] have been out of the big six and the one team that wasn’t from that group was Leicester a few years ago. If we could join that by the end of the season, it would be an incredible achievement so we would hopefully want to finish the job.
Managing players under lockdown
It has been difficult for everyone, especially when football is your life and your passion, but when we went into lockdown, the safety of everyone was most important. You’re trying to keep some kind of structure in your life, exercise, trying to do some kind of home schooling. It’s also about being in contact with staff and players and trying to keep the communication going.
They’re a brilliant bunch of boys and the one thing that is very strong is our spirit, that’s evident for me every single day and in every game we play. They’re very hungry to work so either through my communication or when I speak to the sports scientists, the players are hungry for more, they’re trying to ensure they stay in the best shape they possibly can.
They want the work, they’re very diligent, they’re making sure the readings are back in with the staff and they’re not trying to miss out on anything so it is a very honest group of players and they’re doing their best to sustain and maintain the level they had before they left.
The guys will do as much as they possibly can outside of football but the whole idea is if we get a date to start again, you want the players to be football prepared. They’ll have a base of work that they’re going to be able to do through this period but to have football fitness is different. Hopefully we can get back in and get some in there, you’re probably talking three to four weeks you would want before the first game.
‘We’re trying to plan for football return’
Initially, it was difficult for us all and my mind wasn’t on football, to be honest, it was just trying to ensure that everyone was OK, managing the disruption with staff and players and looking to communicate with them. As time has gone on, I’ve been able to reflect and plan forward.
The biggest thing at this moment in time is that, without any shadow of a doubt, the rhythm of the work will change. Usually, in the morning, we would go in and have a specific time and you would train as a group but the rhythm can change.
It’s trying to be as organised as you possibly can for when we do go back, looking at how we can structure the games we have to play, recovery time and things like that because it all changes. If you were a team who were playing one game a week on a Saturday or Sunday and didn’t play until the following week, there’s a few days to recover and then you go again. This scenario may mean the turnaround of games is very quick so there recovery time is less physical and mental and you have to get going again.
So we’re just trying to plan forward in terms of the schedule and what ifs when we go back.
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