LONDON, United Kingdom, Jul 25 – Brendan Rodgers insists Leicester’s season will not be a failure if they miss out on a place in the Champions League on Sunday.
Rodgers’ side host Manchester United on the last day of the Premier League season knowing a victory would clinch qualification for next season’s Champions League.
Leicester are fifth, a point behind United and Chelsea, after an impressive campaign.
But they have won just two of their eight league games since the coronavirus hiatus, while United are unbeaten in their last 13 Premier League outings.
United only need a draw to finish in the top four and a Chelsea draw or win against Wolves would end Leicester’s Champions League bid.
Regardless of the result on Sunday, Rodgers is adamant Leicester are heading into the right direction.
“The six targets we had – two of those was to get to domestic finals, one was semi-final, one was quarter-final, so we just fell short in those but met all of the other performance goals, in terms of reaching European football and improving our goalscoring,” he said.
“Now we’ve a chance to…this is virtually like a barrier-breaking goal, a goal that will get us into the Champions League.
“It wasn’t really something we spoke about at the beginning of the season because naturally, where the club had been these last few seasons, we wanted to try step-by-step to arrive there.”
Although Leicester have lost the 14-point lead they held over United in January, Rodgers has no regrets about the way his team have approach the post-virus restart.
“The league is over 38 games and people were having us in the Champions League after 20 games. You have to go right the way to the end,” he said.
“There’ll be disappointment if we don’t make it but that would whet the appetite for next season. We were in a good position but you’ve got to sustain it. It also shows you the big improvements this team still has to make.
“We dropped points and we need to be better in that and next year our mentality is one of the areas that needs to improve to sustain the run.”
