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Rodgers takes blame as Leicester get knocked out of the Europa League

Brendan Rodgers
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Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers says he fully takes the blame for the Foxes’ ‘early’ exit from the Europa League.

Brendan Rodgers admits he took a gamble with his side’s lineup as they bowed out of the Europa League on Thursday night.

Given that Slavia Prague are unbeaten at Sinobo stadium this season, Leicester could have been forgiven for playing a draw at that venue.

However, many expected the Premier League side to claim a win at the King Power stadium but it didn’t go as planned.

Two second half goals from Lukas Provod and Abdallah Sima ensured Slavia produced one of the biggest upsets of the round.

It was a make-shift lineup from Brendan Rodgers and he might have been the cause for Leicester’s struggles.

With James Maddison injured and Kelechi Iheanacho banned, the 48-year-old started with Harvey Barnes on the bench and Youri Tielemans in a more advanced position.

The decision didn’t pay off and Rodgers took full responsibility for his choices after the game.

He said to the club’s website: “It’s my responsibility, I pick the team with the players we have available and clearly it didn’t work as well as I would have liked.”

“We have changed the team often enough through the season because we’ve carried injuries all year. The players are coming back from injury, we had to find a way to freshen up the team.”

“Overall, they were better than us and deserved to go through. We have to go away and learn from that.”

“We started pretty well, we had to be patient, but we never really created too many opportunities. I’m disappointed with the goals, in particular the second one – we have to defend with greater urgency.”

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