Brendan Rodgers explains why he left Iheanacho on the bench in Brentford draw

Damola Ogungbe 19:19 - 07.08.2022

Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers has explained the reason behind his substitutions in Sunday's Premier League match against Brentford.

The Foxes fumbled a two-goal lead at the King Power Stadium, allowing Joshua Dasilva to grab an 86th-minute equaliser after James Maddison, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, and Ivan Toney had scored earlier in the match.

While Wilfred Ndidi played was named in Leicester City's starting line-up, Kelechi Iheanacho could only manage a place on the substitutes' bench as the Foxes started their 2022/23 Premier League campaign.

More interestingly was Rodgers's decision to use only one substitute during the match, bringing on Zambian forward Patson Daka in the 73rd minute, despite the Premier League now allowing five substitutes per match. 

In a post-match interview with BBC Sport, the Leicester City manager explained that he brought on Daka because he needed an 'actual striker' to match Brentford's change in formation.

Rodgers said: "They changed their midfield so we wanted to push an actual striker further up the field because they went to a back three and had two deep-lying midfield players."

Daka was signed from Austrian club RB Salzburg and is widely seen as being the substitute for Super Eagles star Iheanacho in the Leicester City squad.

Rodgers went on to admit that he was disappointed that Leicester City could not hold on to the lead, stating that his team lost the ball too many times and lacked organisation.

var widgetLoaderConfig = widgetLoaderConfig || { CDN_URL: 'https://widgets.sportal365.com', APP_LINK: 'desktop', API_URL: 'https://africa.football.api.sportal365.com/', API_KEY: '2f852b4de2f3a5cf3188e74b33087bb4:2c18422f8e826a7d11aeed52edb2449e', LANG: 'en', REQUEST_INTERVAL: 30, ENABLE_BET_SLIP: false, AUTHOR: false, THEME: "light", TOURNAMENT_ORDER: "pulse_nigeria", LINK_OPTIONS_V2: { 'player' : { 'url': '/football/player/{playerId}' }, 'team' : { 'url': '/football/{teamId}' }, 'tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}' }, 'match': { 'url' : '/football/match/{matchId}', 'sort': { 'criteria': 'alphabetically', 'direction': 'asc' } }, 'configuration': { 'newWindow': false }, 'standings_tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}/standings' } } }; if (!document.querySelector('script[src="https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js"]')) { window.setTimeout(function () { let scriptCss = document.createElement('link'); scriptCss.href = 'https://www.pulsesports.ug/css/sport-widgets.css?v=1668785443'; scriptCss.rel = 'stylesheet'; scriptCss.type = 'text/css'; document.body.appendChild(scriptCss); let scriptTag = document.createElement('script'); scriptTag.src = 'https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js'; scriptTag.defer = true; scriptTag.onload = function () { window.setTimeout(function () { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }, 200); }; document.head.appendChild(scriptTag); }, 0); } else { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }

"Clearly disappointed not to win the game, having played well for 65 minutes. Everything had what we wanted but then we lost too many balls, gave the ball away too easy and then we got loose in our organisation," Rodgers concluded.

Leicester City will travel to London for their Matchday 2 Premier League fixture as they play Arsenal away at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, August 6.

Tags: