Brendan Rodgers said his Leicester City side will not be put off their Champions League dream after the city was ordered into the UK’s first local lockdown.
The government has imposed a lockdown on the city of Leicester, which has a higher infection rate than anywhere else in the country, in its first major attempt to curb an outbreak with local rather than national measures.
The move plunges the Foxes’ Premier League game against Crystal Palace this Saturday into doubt, although no official announcement has yet been made about the King Power Stadium clash.
The Premier League will hold urgent talks on Tuesday to decide whether the game against Palace should go ahead, according to The Sun.
With non-essential travel barred into and out of the city, the game may have to be delayed, or Leicester’s three remaining home games may be switched to neutral venues.
Rodgers’ side are currently third in the table and on course for a Champions League place – but they have yet to win since football restarted earlier this month after an enforced hiatus caused by the pandemic.
But the manager feels his side will cope, whatever decision is made.
Before the local lockdown was announced, Rodgers said: “It is something I am not really thinking about. It is all hypothetical at the moment. We will just continue our work.
“Nothing has changed in terms of how we have been working thus far in this situation but I’ve always said we will react accordingly. We have to have agility in this period.
“It’s a very safe environment for the games to be in. We will just keep working until we are told otherwise.
“I think in this moment in time we are in the safest place we can be in terms of our work, the stadium also.”
Palace manager Roy Hodgson said he would follow the league’s guidelines on where his team have to play the fixture.
Hodgson said: “We’re happy to go up and play Leicester wherever the Premier League feels we should play… I’m perfectly happy to let the Premier League take care of that.
