BEVERLY HILLS, January 31, (THEWILL) – On Sunday, English striker Patrick Bamford scored one and assisted in two to give his English Premier League club, Leeds United, a comfortable but hard-fought 3-1 win away at Leicester, thereby preventing the Foxes from jumping to second in the EPL table.
Speaking after the loss, Leicester coach, Brendan Rodgers, displayed candid honesty in his admission that on the day, his charges felt the absence of Jamie Vardy and Wilfred Ndidi and Leeds wasted no time to capitalise on these loopholes for a deserved win.
The schedule of matches will, however, not give them the luxury of waiting until either Vardy or Ndidi or both return. To shore up the gaps that exist in their ranks, Rodgers is confident of signing a midfielder before Monday night’s transfer deadline and addressing that lack of strength in depth in his squad, especially from the middle of the park.
The Sunday fixture was the second Leicester top-scorer Vardy was missing on the path of his recovery from hernia surgery. For Ndidi, a slight hamstring tear in midweek kept him out of the Foxes’ Matchday squad.
Leicester will have to manage without the duo for about two more weeks. In that time, the congested playing calendar will see Rodgers’ charges host defending champions Liverpool at the King Power Stadium, and go up against premiership side Brighton Hove & Albion in their FA Cup fifth-round clash.
Rodgers will hope the men of his squad will prosecute these matches with better determination than they displayed in the home tie against Leeds. It was not encouraging that Leicester could not muster the physicality required, by Rodgers’ own admission, to match Leeds, nor did Leicester have that threat in behind the defence that Vardy offers, as usual.
Although Leicester led through a Harvey Barnes’ strike, that was as good as it got for the hosts as an immediate reply from Stuart Dallas and second-half goals from Patrick Bamford and Jack Harrison sealed a 3-1 victory for the visitors.
The loss ended a good run of nine unbeaten matches and Rodgers took it with candour: “I think we’ve been on a fantastic run and it was always going to come to an end at some point. We weren’t quite ourselves today, but you also have to give Leeds credit and they deserved to win.
“I think you could see that there were certain moments where we missed those two players (Vardy and Ndidi), they are quality for us. There were areas we needed more physicality, but we have won games without these two players.
“When they are not available we have to find other ways to cope with that and throughout the season we have done that and found ways to get results. Today, we could have defended better, we gave away poor goals and we didn’t take our chances.
“They will not be fit for Wednesday either at Fulham and I don’t have a particular game in mind to say when they will be fit.”
When asked about the possibility of a new face at the King Power Stadium, with Watford’s Nathaniel Chalobah the latest name linked before the transfer window shuts for the season, Rodgers said:
“I’m pretty optimistic we will get one over the line. I know Nathaniel from my time working with him at Chelsea, but I know lots of players and there are a number of players that we are looking at.”
