Chelsea is going to take on Leicester City in the sixth round of the FA Cup on Sunday. Chelsea manager Frank Lampard will pit his young team against Leicester, who have surprised everyone this season under the tutelage of Brendan Rodgers. Both managers know each other well from their Chelsea days when they used to work together as player and coach. Now they will look to outwit each other in the battle at the King Power Stadium.
Leicester City and Chelsea are placed at third and fourth positions in the Premier League table respectively. With the team taking on each other in the FA Cup, Brendan was asked if Frank picked up any ideas from him during his stint with Chelsea. But Rodgers doesn’t believe so.
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I obviously know Frank very well and his coaching staff and they’ve done an excellent job there. I think what they’ve got very good players. Chelsea is a club that as it’s set up now too, and has been for the last 15 years or so to challenge at the very highest level of a prize in European football, not just in the English game. So there’s an expectancy there for them to do that. So they’ve got really talented players. Frank’s been the perfect manager for them to go in there and, and connect the supporters with the players. And he’s also managed that very, very well. It’s a tough game for us.”
Rodgers also addressed the speculations surrounding left-back Ben Chilwell. The impressive performance the 23-year-old has put in during the season has seen him linked with Chelsea. Rodgers doesn’t mind the rumours around him as he believes it is just a part of the game.
“Well, I’m experienced enough to know it’s all part of the game. Now, the gossip and speculation around players, coaches, managers, you tend to just ignore it. Ben’s a wonderful talent, he’s 23 years of age, he’s English, he’s one of the best left-backs in world football. I know he can get better. He can improve. He’s been a joy to work with since I’ve come into here. So the speculation won’t really affect him.”
In March, the world was reeling under the adverse effects of the novel coronavirus. At the time, things were unclear surrounding the state of affair and things will play out in the future. All sporting action was cancelled as the world went into a lockdown. Rodgers contracted the virus after the season halted and narrated his experience during the tough phase.
“We obviously played our last game against Aston Villa. And then probably about two weeks after that, when we’d just gone into lockdown. I know exercise most days and for two days I was feeling a lack of strength and fatigue when I was doing my exercise. And then this one day I went to go out and I could hardly walk 10 yards. So that was the start. I didn’t know at the time that’s what it was, but I was just thinking, it was maybe not feeling well or a little run down. Sometimes when you work, work, work, then you stop. Sometimes the body can react. So I thought it was maybe something like that. And then, and then I started to lose my taste and smell.
And obviously then the symptoms were that this was one of the, uh, this was one of the symptoms of having COVID-19. So, um, but we just continued and obviously for three weeks, I couldn’t smell or, or taste by starting to get my strength back. And then into the fourth week. I said to my wife who, by this time she was obviously not feeling well, we just said, listen, this wasn’t like any, anything else we’ve had before because you have a headache, but it’s really on a specific part of your head. So we got a test just to know what it was. Cause if it wasn’t, we were wondering what it might’ve been. And that was it. So, there are so many more people, unfortunately, the world has had it much worse than what we had. Thankfully we were healthy enough to fight it on. We were okay. But it definitely was something different from what I’ve experienced before.”
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Source: HindustanTimes