LEICESTER City manager Brendan Rodgers has confessed that his side are not the same without their Nigerian star Wilfred Ndidi.
The Super Eagles midfielder is out with a hamstring injury and will miss Leicester City’s Premier League clash against Crystal Palace on Sunday as well as Nigeria’s Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers in the coming week.
“We miss his influence on the field, but like I said, we’ve still got very good players,” Rodgers told the Leicester City website in his match preview.
“It’s a team cohesion that we can improve. Wilf Ndidi will probably miss the weekend. We had to wait for a scan on his hamstring, so he could be out for a few weeks, which is a shame. Apart from that, everyone else is okay.”
Leicester City’s form has not been great in recent weeks and they will also be without key defender Jonny Evans, a situation Rodgers is understandably not pleased about.
“Obviously, Jonny Evans has hardly played. It’s no coincidence that in the game he did play this season, we kept a clean sheet,” the manager said.
“He’s been excellent and we’re obviously missing the likes of Wesley Fofana and James Justin. They’re top defenders, however we still have very good players.
“We still can be better. We need to raise the standard of our performance, no doubt, but with the honesty and the spirit in the group, we’ll look to do that over the course of the season.”
Leicester secured successive fifth-place finishes and won the Emirates FA Cup for the first time in their history last season, which Rodgers knows has raised expectations.
He says he is motivated by the challenge of meeting those expectations.
“We’ve created a standard and an expectation and really raised the bar over a consistent period,” the 48-year-old Northern Irishman continued. “We’ve dropped off that standard. That’s something, with the mentality, the spirit, it’s getting that stability back into the team. It happens to every team.
“For us, we’ve had two-and three-quarter years where we’ve been consistently very good. It’s a little bump in the road, but this excites me. I was talking to the staff this morning.
“When you have experience and you hit this period, you know that it’s not going to be plain sailing all the way through your managerial time at any club. We’re the only ones who can do anything about it. That’s the beauty, that’s the excitement. It’s a challenge, of course it is, but that’s why we’re here.
“For us, in these last two-and three-quarter years, we’ve reached European football, we’ve won an FA Cup and a Community Shield, so the bar has been raised.
“We’re just getting back to the basics of the game, those fundamental aspects, and we’ll enjoy getting back to our level. It’s the profession we’re in. There’s no manager or coach that goes into a club that has a full-on period where it’s just achievements.
“When you fall below that, the scrutiny comes onto you. I would rather have done what we’ve done and know we’ve fallen below because you have that opportunity to go and raise the bar again. That’s something we’ll look to do and that’s a great test for us.”
