Brendan Rodgers Says He has a Plan Against Liverpool

The Foxes were arguably embarrassed against Newcastle last time out, and Brendan Rodgers had a lot of complaints about his side’s mentality:

We were very disappointed with the performance. It was unlike what we‘ve been. We’ve been strong and aggressive. Fifty-two seconds into the game we made a mistake. It makes it difficult against a side high on confidence.

We have to learn from it. If you look back at this time last year, we lost 6-3 at Man City and then beat Liverpool. That tells you everything about the mentality of the team. It was just so disappointing to start how we did. We’re now getting ready for another game.

His plan against Liverpool is built on his own experience with the team, albeit one less complete than that led by Jürgen Klopp:

I think the first 20 minutes of a game at Anfield are always very important. With the crowd and intensity of which a Liverpool team will want to play, that’s important, that resilience and mentality.

You need that ability if you do go behind to have that belief. I think in any game of football there are two games – the game itself and before that the game of belief. You always believe when you step onto the field, especially against some of the big teams away from home, you need to have that belief and mentality that you can get a result. For us, we’ve got a great opportunity to go to a great stadium to play football in and look to see if we can replicate that belief and spirit last time we played.

It’s always a difficult game and nobody knows that more than myself at Anfield — but it’s a great challenge for us. [Newcastle] was disappointing, like I say, but challenges are there to be overcome and there’s a great opportunity for us to get out there in a fantastic game.

For his part, Klopp is aware that Leicester will come out hoping to make amends for their last performance:

They have a lot of fantastic football players so we have to be ready. Everything is really fresh again — we are really excited — we are full of desire to go again and again and again.

I expect a reaction [to the Newcastle loss] and a tough game. They could change their system which makes it more difficult. But we have to push through what we want to do — it’s been a long time since we played at home.