James Maddison defends Brendan Rodgers amid sack pressure

Leicester midfielder James Maddison leapt to the defence of Brendan Rodgers as pressure on the Northern Irishman grows. The winless Foxes were beaten 6-2 by Tottenham on Saturday night after Son Heung-min scored a second-half hat-trick. Rodgers accepted the pressure over his future in his post-match interview with Sky Sports, but Maddison came to his manager’s defence.

The playmaker, who made it 2-2 in the first half, insisted the Leicester players must also take their fair share of responsibility for their form. They have conceded a league-worst 22 goals in seven Premier League matches this season and have accumulated a single point having lost six of those games.

It is their worst run of form for eight years and Leicester’s results and performances have inevitably led to questions being asked about Rodgers’ job security. But Maddison said when asked if the players must accept criticism too: “Oh definitely. It is a collective, it’s not the manager. We’re the eleven out there. It’s painful and it hurts when you see a manager who you have a lot of respect for and who you’ve built a brilliant relationship with, get so much heat and so much negativity.

“Ultimately we are the players out there that have to do the business. We haven’t been of late. That hurts us.” The England international added: “It is tough to debrief it in my head so soon after. Obviously people will check the scoreline and see 6-2 and think ‘Wow, Leicester got battered again’. But I don’t think that was the case. First half especially I thought we were outstanding.

“We’ve worked so hard on the training ground this week because we know we need to produce better results because we haven’t of late. We put so much into the game. In the first half it seemed like the Leicester we know and the Brendan Rodgers side we’ve created in the last few years, the high press was working well, we were comfortable in possession and had many chances to score.

“Son comes on, produces a couple of moments of magic, the game gets stretched and it ends up 6-2 which looks like a ridiculous scoreline. It’s hard to take. We conceded from a couple of set pieces which is obviously disappointing, especially if I told you how many hours we’ve done on that because it was a downfall of ours last season.

“We’ve brought in a set-piece coach and everyone has really brought into that. But Eric Dier gets a brilliant, brilliant header on it. He’s a big guy and it’s sometimes hard to stop when it’s quality. A couple of individual mistakes of our own which ended up making it too much for us to do.”

A downtrodden Rodgers looked defeated in his own interview and admitted when asked if this increases pressure on him: “Very much so. It absolutely does. I come in every day and do my work and players are playing with confidence. However you’ve got to win games.

“I totally understand that and the frustration of supporters. I can’t hide from that. It’s my responsibility with the scores. Listen whatever happens I’ll have a huge amount of respect for them [the owners] because they’ve given me great support since I’ve been here. I understand the game. I understand football.

“Today the scoreline didn’t reflect the game but the bottom line is we’ve had a heavy defeat. We should’ve been better. So for me, they’ve given me brilliant support. And whatever happens to me here at Leicester whether I stay and continue to fight on, I’ll always respect them.”